Summary
A cosmid clone bank of total Rhizobium japonicum DNA was constructed and screened for the presence of clones harbouring nifH and nifDK. A contigous DNA region of more than 30 kb length was physically mapped, and it was found that the nifH gene is located on the 3′ side (downstream) at a distance of 17 kb away from the nifDK operon. The direction of transcription of the two operons is the same.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Avtges P, Scolnick PA, Haselkorn R (1983) Genetic and physical map of the structural genes (nifH, D, K) coding for the nitrogenase complex of Rhodopseudomonas capsulata. J Bacteriol 156:251–256
Chang ACY, Cohen SN (1978) Construction and characterization of amplifiable multicopy DNA cloning vehicles derived from the P15A cryptic miniplasmid. J Bacteriol 134:1141–1156
Corbin D, Barran L, Ditta G (1983) Organization and expression of Rhizobium meliloti nitrogen fixation genes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 80:3005–3009
Denhardt DT (1966) A membrane filter-technique for the detection of complementary DNA. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 23:641–646
Frey J, Bagdasarian M, Feiss D, Franklin CH, Deshusses J (1983) Stable cosmid vectors that enable the introduction of cloned fragments into a wide range of gram-negative bacteria. Gene 24:299–308
Fuhrmann M, Hennecke H (1982) Coding properties of cloned nitrogenase structural genes from Rhizobium japonicum. Mol Gen Genet 187:419–425
Fuhrmann M, Hennecke H (1984) Rhizobium japonicum nitrogenase Fe protein gene (nifH). J Bacteriol 158:1005–1011
Hahn M, Hennecke H (1984) Localized mutagenesis in Rhizobium japonicum. Mol Gen Genet 193:46–52
Hahn M, Meyer L, Studer D, Regensburger B, Hennecke H (1984) Insertion and deletion mutations within the nif region of Rhizobium japonicum. Plant Mol Biol 3:in press
Hennecke H (1981) Recombinant plasmids carrying nitrogen fixation genes of Rhizobium japonicum. Nature 291:354–355
Hennecke H, Günther I, Binder F (1982) A novel cloning vector for the direct selection of recombinant DNA in E. coli. Gene 19:231–234
Hohn B (1979) In vitro packaging of λ and cosmid DNA. In: Wu R (ed) Methods in enzymology, vol 68. Academic Press, New York, pp 299–309
Kaluza K, Hennecke H (1984) Fine structure analysis of the nifDK operon encoding the α and β subunits of dinitrogenase from Rhizobium japonicum. Mol Gen Genet 196:35–42
Kaluza K, Fuhrmann M, Hahn M, Regensburger B, Hennecke H (1983) In Rhizobium japonicum the nitrogenase genes nifH and nifDK are separated J Bacteriol 155:915–918
Kennedy C, Cannon F, Cannon M, Dixon R, Hill S, Jensen J, Kumar S, McLean P, Merrick M, Robson R, Postgate JR (1981) Recent advances in the genetics and regulation of nitrogen fixation. In: Gibson AH, Newton WE (eds) Current perspectives in nitrogen fixation. Australian Academy of Science, Canberra, pp 146–156
Maniatis T, Fritsch, Sambrook J (1982) Molecular cloning. A laboratory manual. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY
Murray NE, Brammar WJ, Murray K (1977) Lambdoid phages that simplify the recovery of in vitro recombinants. Mol Gen Genet 150:53–61
Regensburger B, Hennecke H (1983) RNA polymerase from Rhizobium japonicum. Arch Microbiol 135:103–109
Rice D, Mazur BJ, Haselkorn R (1982) Isolation and physical mapping of nitrogen fixation genes from the cyanobacterium Anabaena 7120. J Biol Chem 257:13157–13163
Rigby PWJ, Dieckmann M, Rhodes C, Berg P (1977) Labeling deoxyribonucleic acid to high specific activity in vitro by nick-translation with DNA polymerase I. J Mol Biol 113:237–251
Roberts GP, Brill WJ (1981) Genetics and regulation of nitrogen fixation. Annu Rev Microbiol 35:207–235
Robson R, Jones R, Kennedy CK, Drummond M, Ramos J, Woodley PR, Wheeler C, Chessyre J, Postgate J (1984) Aspects of genetics of Azotobacters. In: Veeger C, Newton WE (eds) Advances in nitrogen fixation research, Nijhoff/Junk Publishers, The Hague, pp 643–651
Ruvkun GB, Sundaresan V, Ausubel FM (1982) Directed transposon Tn5 mutagenesis and complementation analysis of Rhizobium meliloti symbiotic nitrogen fixation genes. Cell 29:551–559
Schetgens TMP, Bakkeren G, van Dun C, Hontelez JGJ, van den Bos RC, van Kammen A (1984) Molecular cloning and functional characterization of Rhizobium leguminosarum structural nif genes by site-directed transposon mutagenesis and expression in Escherichia coli minicells. J Mol Appl Genet 2:406–421
Scott KF, Rolfe GB, Shine J (1983) Nitrogenase structural genes are unlinked in the nonlegume symbiont Parasponia Rhizobium. DNA 2:141–148
Simon R, Priefer U, Pühler A (1983) Vector plasmids for in vivo and in vitro manipulation of Gram-negative bacteria. In: Pühler A (ed) Molecular genetics of the bacteria-plant interaction. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg New York, pp 98–106
Southern EM (1975) Detection of specific sequences among DNA fragments separated by gel electrophoresis. J Mol Biol 98:503–517
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Communicated by W. Arber
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fischer, HM., Hennecke, H. Linkage map of the Rhizobium japonicum nifH and nifDK operons encoding the polypeptides of the nitrogenase enzyme complex. Molec. Gen. Genet. 196, 537–540 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00436206
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00436206