Skip to main content
Journal of Bacteriology logoLink to Journal of Bacteriology
. 1987 Dec;169(12):5393–5400. doi: 10.1128/jb.169.12.5393-5400.1987

Rhizobium meliloti nifN (fixF) gene is part of an operon regulated by a nifA-dependent promoter and codes for a polypeptide homologous to the nifK gene product.

O M Aguilar 1, H Reiländer 1, W Arnold 1, A Pühler 1
PMCID: PMC213963  PMID: 3316182

Abstract

An essential gene for symbiotic nitrogen fixation (fixF) is located near the common nodulation region of Rhizobium meliloti. A DNA fragment carrying fixF was characterized by hybridization with Klebsiella pneumoniae nif DNA and by nucleotide sequence analysis. The fixF gene was found to be related to K. pneumoniae nifN and was therefore renamed as the R. meliloti nifN gene. Upstream of the nifN coding region a second open reading frame was identified coding for a putative polypeptide of 110 amino acids (ORF110). By fragment-specific Tn5 mutagenesis it was shown that the nifN gene and ORF110 form an operon. The control region of this operon contains a nif promoter and also the putative nifA-binding sequence. For the deduced amino acid sequence of the nifN gene product a striking homology to the R. meliloti nifK protein was found. One cysteine residue and its adjacent amino acid sequence, which are highly conserved in the R. meliloti nifK, R. meliloti nifN, and K. pneumoniae nifN proteins, may play a role in binding the FeMo cofactor.

Full text

PDF
5397

Images in this article

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Aguilar O. M., Kapp D., Pühler A. Characterization of a Rhizobium meliloti fixation gene (fixF) located near the common nodulation region. J Bacteriol. 1985 Oct;164(1):245–254. doi: 10.1128/jb.164.1.245-254.1985. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Alvarez-Morales A., Betancourt-Alvarez M., Kaluza K., Hennecke H. Activation of the Bradyrhizobium japonicum nifH and nifDK operons is dependent on promoter-upstream DNA sequences. Nucleic Acids Res. 1986 May 27;14(10):4207–4227. doi: 10.1093/nar/14.10.4207. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Brigle K. E., Weiss M. C., Newton W. E., Dean D. R. Products of the iron-molybdenum cofactor-specific biosynthetic genes, nifE and nifN, are structurally homologous to the products of the nitrogenase molybdenum-iron protein genes, nifD and nifK. J Bacteriol. 1987 Apr;169(4):1547–1553. doi: 10.1128/jb.169.4.1547-1553.1987. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Burton Z., Burgess R. R., Lin J., Moore D., Holder S., Gross C. A. The nucleotide sequence of the cloned rpoD gene for the RNA polymerase sigma subunit from E coli K12. Nucleic Acids Res. 1981 Jun 25;9(12):2889–2903. doi: 10.1093/nar/9.12.2889. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Bánfalvi Z., Sakanyan V., Koncz C., Kiss A., Dusha I., Kondorosi A. Location of nodulation and nitrogen fixation genes on a high molecular weight plasmid of R. meliloti. Mol Gen Genet. 1981;184(2):318–325. doi: 10.1007/BF00272925. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Cannon M., Hill S., Kavanaugh E., Cannon F. A molecular genetic study of nif expression in Klebsiella pneumoniae at the level of transcription, translation and nitrogenase activity. Mol Gen Genet. 1985;198(2):198–206. doi: 10.1007/BF00382996. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Castilho B. A., Olfson P., Casadaban M. J. Plasmid insertion mutagenesis and lac gene fusion with mini-mu bacteriophage transposons. J Bacteriol. 1984 May;158(2):488–495. doi: 10.1128/jb.158.2.488-495.1984. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Dean D. R., Brigle K. E. Azotobacter vinelandii nifD- and nifE-encoded polypeptides share structural homology. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1985 Sep;82(17):5720–5723. doi: 10.1073/pnas.82.17.5720. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Deininger P. L. Random subcloning of sonicated DNA: application to shotgun DNA sequence analysis. Anal Biochem. 1983 Feb 15;129(1):216–223. doi: 10.1016/0003-2697(83)90072-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Dixon R. A. The genetic complexity of nitrogen fixation. The ninth Fleming lecture. J Gen Microbiol. 1984 Nov;130(11):2745–2755. doi: 10.1099/00221287-130-11-2745. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Egelhoff T. T., Fisher R. F., Jacobs T. W., Mulligan J. T., Long S. R. Nucleotide sequence of Rhizobium meliloti 1021 nodulation genes: nodD is read divergently from nodABC. DNA. 1985 Jun;4(3):241–248. doi: 10.1089/dna.1985.4.241. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Gitt M. A., Wang L. F., Doi R. H. A strong sequence homology exists between the major RNA polymerase sigma factors of Bacillus subtilis and Escherichia coli. J Biol Chem. 1985 Jun 25;260(12):7178–7185. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Gussin G. N., Ronson C. W., Ausubel F. M. Regulation of nitrogen fixation genes. Annu Rev Genet. 1986;20:567–591. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ge.20.120186.003031. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Horvath B., Kondorosi E., John M., Schmidt J., Török I., Györgypal Z., Barabas I., Wieneke U., Schell J., Kondorosi A. Organization, structure and symbiotic function of Rhizobium meliloti nodulation genes determining host specificity for alfalfa. Cell. 1986 Aug 1;46(3):335–343. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(86)90654-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Kennedy C., Eady R. R., Kondorosi E., Rekosh D. K. The molybdenum--iron protein of Klebsiella pneumoniae nitrogenase. Evidence for non-identical subunits from peptide 'mapping'. Biochem J. 1976 May 1;155(2):383–389. doi: 10.1042/bj1550383. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. MacNeil T., MacNeil D., Roberts G. P., Supiano M. A., Brill W. J. Fine-structure mapping and complementation analysis of nif (nitrogen fixation) genes in Klebsiella pneumoniae. J Bacteriol. 1978 Oct;136(1):253–266. doi: 10.1128/jb.136.1.253-266.1978. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Messing J. New M13 vectors for cloning. Methods Enzymol. 1983;101:20–78. doi: 10.1016/0076-6879(83)01005-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Minton N. P. Improved plasmid vectors for the isolation of translational lac gene fusions. Gene. 1984 Nov;31(1-3):269–273. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(84)90220-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Ow D. W., Ausubel F. M. Regulation of nitrogen metabolism genes by nifA gene product in Klebsiella pneumoniae. Nature. 1983 Jan 27;301(5898):307–313. doi: 10.1038/301307a0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Roberts G. P., MacNeil T., MacNeil D., Brill W. J. Regulation and characterization of protein products coded by the nif (nitrogen fixation) genes of Klebsiella pneumoniae. J Bacteriol. 1978 Oct;136(1):267–279. doi: 10.1128/jb.136.1.267-279.1978. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Rosenberg C., Boistard P., Dénarié J., Casse-Delbart F. Genes controlling early and late functions in symbiosis are located on a megaplasmid in Rhizobium meliloti. Mol Gen Genet. 1981;184(2):326–333. doi: 10.1007/BF00272926. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  22. Sanger F., Nicklen S., Coulson A. R. DNA sequencing with chain-terminating inhibitors. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1977 Dec;74(12):5463–5467. doi: 10.1073/pnas.74.12.5463. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  23. Schmidt J., John M., Kondorosi E., Kondorosi A., Wieneke U., Schröder G., Schröder J., Schell J. Mapping of the protein-coding regions of Rhizobium meliloti common nodulation genes. EMBO J. 1984 Aug;3(8):1705–1711. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1984.tb02035.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  24. Shah V. K., Imperial J., Ugalde R. A., Ludden P. W., Brill W. J. In vitro synthesis of the iron-molybdenum cofactor of nitrogenase. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Mar;83(6):1636–1640. doi: 10.1073/pnas.83.6.1636. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  25. Shine J., Dalgarno L. The 3'-terminal sequence of Escherichia coli 16S ribosomal RNA: complementarity to nonsense triplets and ribosome binding sites. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1974 Apr;71(4):1342–1346. doi: 10.1073/pnas.71.4.1342. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  26. Szeto W. W., Zimmerman J. L., Sundaresan V., Ausubel F. M. A Rhizobium meliloti symbiotic regulatory gene. Cell. 1984 Apr;36(4):1035–1043. doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(84)90053-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  27. Ugalde R. A., Imperial J., Shah V. K., Brill W. J. Biosynthesis of iron-molybdenum cofactor in the absence of nitrogenase. J Bacteriol. 1984 Sep;159(3):888–893. doi: 10.1128/jb.159.3.888-893.1984. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  28. Weber G., Reiländer H., Pühler A. Mapping and expression of a regulatory nitrogen fixation gene (fixD) of Rhizobium meliloti. EMBO J. 1985 Nov;4(11):2751–2756. doi: 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1985.tb03999.x. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  29. Yanisch-Perron C., Vieira J., Messing J. Improved M13 phage cloning vectors and host strains: nucleotide sequences of the M13mp18 and pUC19 vectors. Gene. 1985;33(1):103–119. doi: 10.1016/0378-1119(85)90120-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Bacteriology are provided here courtesy of American Society for Microbiology (ASM)

RESOURCES