Academician Chen Wenxin: Correcting the name of "Chinese Rhizobium"

▲Chairman Mao's personal letter received by Chen Wenxin
.

▲Chen Wenxin and "China Science News"
.

■Our correspondent He Zhiyong

On the morning of October 12th, colleagues were sorting out Mr.
's belongings in Chen Wenxin's office
.

"This is the year when Mr.
Chen was 90 years old.
I accompany her to check soybean field rhizobia.
" "This is 2014.
The old man went to Wuhan to attend the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chen Huagui, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a microbiologist.
" "Look, this In the project application form, Mr.
Chen also made amendments.
"This is 2018.
Mr.
Chen accepted an interview with "China Science News".
She called for the development of green agriculture and transforming the advantages of rhizobia resources into production advantages.
".
.
.

Mr.
has gone, the spirit will live forever
.

"Life" starts at the age of fifty

"I hope my old classmates and good seniors will get along well!" After hearing the bad news, Li Fudi, a soil microbiologist, sent a message of condolences from Wuhan in the name of "old schoolmate"
.

"At that time, Chen Wenxin was still very famous in the Agricultural College
.

The students learned at this time: Chen Wenxin's father, Chen Chang (Zhang Fu), was one of the leaders of the early Hunan student movement and labor movement of the Communist Party of China
.

After graduating from university in 1952, Chen Wenxin stayed in school and worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Soil Agrochemistry of Huazhong Agricultural College
.

After the "Cultural Revolution" ended the restoration work, Chen Wenxin chose the "hard and time-consuming but remote and cold" research-rhizobia
.

As early as 1936, Chen Wenxin's teacher, Chen Huakui, studied the legume-rhizobium symbiotic nitrogen fixation at the Lausanne Experimental Station in the United Kingdom.
He knew the difficulty of this research
.

"This is a very meticulous and tedious job
.

"Rhizobia is an old problem, what can be done?" Colleagues were not interested in this
.

"1978 was the spring of science, and my scientific'life' only started when I was almost 50 years old!" In the summer of 2018, Chen Wenxin recalled his scientific journey, and said with emotion: "In the past, too much time was lost.
, How good the country is now, and how good the conditions for scientific research are!"

Dare to be "real" with international authority

Since the early 1980s, Chen Wenxin led students and organized colleagues to conduct extensive investigations and collections of legume rhizobia, which can provide 80% of the nitrogen needed by farmland ecosystems and improve soil structure
.

"It's really hard work
to pick tumors.

For more than 40 years, Chen Wenxin’s scientific research team has overcome numerous difficulties and conducted excavation and investigation on the nodulation of various legumes under different ecological conditions in 32 provinces, 700 counties and cities across the country, and stored 12,000 rhizobia in the warehouse-establishing an international The largest rhizobia resource bank and database
.
Through the analysis of more than 100 phenotypic traits of 7000 strains, they discovered a batch of precious rhizobia germplasm resources with strong resistance to acid, alkali, salt, high temperature or low temperature
.

In 1988, after 8 years of dull and tedious repeated experiments, Chen Wenxin discovered a new genus
.
This is the fourth genus of rhizobia discovered by humans, and the first genus of rhizobia discovered and named by Chinese scholars-Sinorhizobium (Sinorhizobium)
.

After 1997, Chen Wenxin led the team and described and published another new genus-"Medium brachyrhizobium" and 15 new species, accounting for 1/2 of the rhizobia genus published internationally since 1984, and 1 of the species.
/3
.

Chen Wenxin is able to endure hardships and dares to "be true" with international authorities, revising some traditional views in the international academic community
.

For more than 100 years, the "host specificity" of rhizobia has been regarded as an important characteristic
.
Chen Wenxin’s research proves that one plant can coexist with a variety of rhizobia, and the above-mentioned traditional concepts cannot accurately summarize the symbiotic relationship between rhizobia and legumes
.

For a long time, international scholars believed that "the various symbiosis mechanisms of rhizobia have nothing to do with the phylogenetic history of rhizobia
.
" In 2012, Chen Wenxin’s team found that in the process of rhizobia adapting to symbiotic interaction and other environmental conditions, genes unique to the system branch are widely used.
This process is regulated by the rhizobia speciation mechanism, and this process itself may also be An important way of rhizobia species formation and differentiation
.
In 1998, Chen Wenxin was invited to co-author with the American scholar LD Kuykendall the chapter on rhizobia in the second edition of "Berger's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology"
.
During the compilation process, LDKuykendall invited others to participate, and denied the new classification system of rhizobia recognized by the Rhizobium/Agrobacterium subcommittee at that time and recognized by the international academic community, and merged the four genera including Chinese rhizobium into one genus Rhizobium—— This undoubtedly denies the research results of rhizobia taxonomists in the past few decades
.

Chen Wenxin resolutely opposed, refused to sign and notified the Rhizobium/Agrobacterium Subcommittee and the editorial board of the "Berger's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology"
.
In the end, LD Kuykendall's wrong opinions were rejected, and he had to apologize to Chen Wenxin
.

"It is not easy for the genus Sinorhizobium to be accepted and recognized by the international academic community
.
" On October 10, Professor Zhang Xuexian of Massey University in New Zealand said with emotion in the WeChat group, "It is not just the'China' in the name, It also involved the corresponding rename of an important model strain
.
” At that time, the model strain (Rhizobium meliloti) was named before, and the naming of the genus Sinorhizobium undoubtedly allowed “Laozi to follow the “Son” to change
.
” "The rules of the world are like this, and this kind of thing happens often
.
"

Decades of rigorous research has given Chen Wenxin this "more real" self-confidence
.

Four proposals in ten years

Green development is the trend of the world
.
Chen Wenxin hopes to make extensive use of the nitrogen fixation effect of rhizobia, reduce environmental pollution caused by large-scale use of chemical fertilizers, improve soil fertility, and improve the ecological environment
.

In 1999, after the 73-year-old Chen Wenxin heard the national "Western Development" order, he invited several scientists to write a letter to relevant national leaders and ministries and commissions, suggesting that the "Rhizobium-legume symbiosis system" be included in the western planting plan, and the adzuki bean The branch played a major role in returning farmland to forests and grasses in the western development, and carried out a large-scale experiment of forage planting and inoculation with rhizobia in the west
.

In 2006, when it was discovered that the intercropping of legumes and gramineous plants could overcome "nitrogen inhibition" and promote more nodulation and nitrogen fixation of legumes, Chen Wenxin and several academicians jointly proposed to the central government "Rational use of crop planting systems to reduce fertilizer pollution" Suggestions
.
During this period, Chen Wenxin's team conducted high-efficiency rhizobia screening of pasture and soybean varieties and field trials in multiple areas, and the effect of increasing production was very good
.

In 2012, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to "put the construction of ecological civilization in a prominent position"-which greatly encouraged Chen Wenxin
.
She and 10 academicians also wrote a letter to the Central Committee, proposing to establish a "National Engineering Research Center for Biological Nitrogen Fixation"
.

"Mr.
Chen's point of view is that non-point source pollution of agricultural fertilizers and pesticides is no less harmful to the environment than industrial point source pollution.
It must be prevented and can be prevented
," said Tian Changfu, a disciple of Chen Wenxin and a professor at the School of Biology of China Agricultural University.
"Mr.
Chen It is believed that the method of prevention is to control from the source
.
One is to re-use organic fertilizers and scientifically combine organic and inorganic fertilizers to reduce the amount of chemical fertilizers; the other is to optimize the planting system and scientifically carry out legume-rhizobium symbionts.
Intercropping, crop rotation and planting system
.
"

In his 80s, Chen Wenxin was still running around to promote rhizobia
.
On her desk, there are often two newspapers-"China Agricultural University News" and "China Science News", always paying attention to the development of the school and the frontiers of science
.
Being too old and unable to run, Chen Wenxin set his sights on the authoritative media in the scientific community, "Science China"
.

In November 2013, Chen Wenxin published a proposal in the "China Science News" calling for "Developing a new type of waste-free agriculture and reducing non-point source pollution", proposing "combination of organic fertilizer and chemical fertilizer, and combination of farming and cultivating; making full use of biological nitrogen fixation.
" , Reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizer; intercropping with legumes and other crops to play a mutually beneficial effect between organisms; mixed sowing of beans and grasses to develop grassland agriculture" and other recommendations, hoping to provide reliable for the realization of the sustainable development of green agriculture in China and the improvement of the living environment of urban and rural people Guaranteed
.

In his later years, Chen Wenxin refused all kinds of interviews
.
In the fall of 2018, she was interviewed by China Science Daily again, and she was talking about rhizobia
.
This is the last time Chen Wenxin has been interviewed by the media.
.
.

"I think the application of rhizobia will become wider and wider!" On October 12, in the slightly rudimentary basement floor of the Life Sciences Building, 12,000 rhizobia were quietly frozen in several huge freezers—— Chen Wenxin's disciple and associate professor of the School of Biology of China Agricultural University, Chen Wenfeng, moved his office here early
.
Guarding the world's largest rhizobia germplasm resource bank, he feels "very clean"
.

"We all want to take a look at Mr
.
.
" Chen Wenfeng looked at the photos of the farewell ceremony of Chen Wenxin's body on October 9th, and thought about the last time with her teacher that day: "She is very peaceful, as if she was asleep
.
"

"I am Chen Wenfeng, and I am the 19085th flower contributor
.
" The update of his circle of friends still stayed on October 9th
.
This is a screenshot of mourning for his teacher.
The teacher is still looking at his students with a smile as before
.