General Information: It is a nitrogen-fixing symbiotic bacteria that interacts with the root of the common bean plant Phaseolus vulgaris. The molecular biology and evolution of R. etli and its relation to other nitrogen/fixing symbionts has been well studied. The genomic sequence will provide information on the process of symbiosis, on the genetic systems that allow the survival and adaptations of this bacteria to the soil, and on the evolutionary relationship and the symbiosis origin of this organism.