Summary
Five nitrogen-fixing strains of Enterobacter agglomerans isolated from the rhizosphere of wheat were found to harbour plasmids ranging in molecular weight from approximately 70 to 100 Mdal. Using a heat treatment procedure, derivatives of two strains unable to fix nitrogen were readily obtained. Furthermore, a correlation between loss of nitrogen fixation and loss of a large plasmid was demonstrated.
Plasmids of all the five E. agglomerans strains were separated on agarose gels, transferred to nitrocellulose filters and tested for their ability to hybridise with the radioactively labelled 6.2 kb EcoRI fragment of pSA30 containing the nifKDH region of Klebsiella pneumoniae. One plasmid from each strain was found to hybridise. When plasmid pEA3 purified from E. agglomerans strain 333 was used as the radioactive probe, it hybridised strongly to the 6.2 kb EcoRI fragment of pSA30. These results demonstrate that the nitrogenase structural genes (nif-genes) are located on indigenous plasmids in the five nitrogen-fixing strains of E. agglomerans.
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Singh, M., Kleeberger, A. & Klingmüller, W. Location of nitrogen fixation (nif) genes on indigenous plasmids of Enterobacter agglomerans . Mol Gen Genet 190, 373–378 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00331061
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00331061