The overexpression of Bax inhibitor-1 in common bean roots highlights its dual role in the legume-rhizobia symbiosis.

Bax-inhibitor 1 (BI-1) is a cell death suppressor conserved in all eukaryotes that modulates cell death in response to abiotic stress and pathogen attack in plants. Thus far nothing is known about its role in the establishment of symbiotic interactions. Here, we demonstrate the functional relevance of an Arabidopsisthaliana BI-1 homolog (PvBI-1a) to symbiosis between the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and Rhizobium tropici. We show that the PvBI-1a expression changes observed during early symbiosis resemble those of some defence-response related proteins. By using gain- and loss-of-function approaches, we demonstrate that the overexpression of PvBI-1a in the roots of common bean increases the number of rhizobial infection events (and therefore the final number of nodules per root), but induces the premature death of nodule cells, thus affecting their nitrogen fixation efficiency. Nodule morphological alterations are known to be associated with changes in the expression of genes tied to defence, autophagy, and vesicular trafficking. Results obtained in the present work suggest that BI-1 has a dual role in the regulation of programmed cell death during symbiosis, thus extending our understanding about its critical function in the modulation of host immunity while responding to by beneficial microbes.