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Phylogeny of nitrogenase sequences inFrankia and other nitrogen-fixing microorganisms

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Summary

The complete nucleotide sequence of a nitrogenase (nifH) gene was determined from a second strain (HRN18a) ofFrankia, an aerobic soil bacterium. The open reading frame is 870 bp long and encodes a polypeptide of 290 amino acids. The amino acid and nucleotide sequences were compared with 21 other published sequences. The twoFrankia strains were 96% similar at the amino acid level and 93% similar at the nucleotide level. A number of methods were used to infer phylogenies of these nitrogen fixers, based onnifH amino acid and nucleotide sequences. The results obtained do not agree completely with other phylogenies for these bacteria and thus make probable occurrences of lateral transfer of thenif genes. The time of divergence of the twoFrankia strains could be estimated at about 100 million years. The vanadium-dependent (Type 2) nitrogenase present inAzotobacter spp. appears to be a recent derivation from the conventional molybdenum-dependent (Type 1) enzyme, whereas the iron-dependent (Type 3) alternative nitrogenase would have a much older origin.

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  1. Centre de Recherche en Biologie Forestière, Université Laval, G1K 7P4, Québec, Province of Québec, Canada

    Philippe Normand & Jean Bouquet

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  1. Philippe Normand
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Normand, P., Bouquet, J. Phylogeny of nitrogenase sequences inFrankia and other nitrogen-fixing microorganisms. J Mol Evol 29, 436–447 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02602914

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02602914

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