functional organization of a single nif cluster in the mesophilic archaeon methanosarcina mazei strain g？1功能性组织嗜中温的单个集群nif archaeon甲烷八叠球菌属mazei菌株g 1.pdfVIP

Archaea 1, 143–150 © 2002 Heron Publishing—Victoria, Canada Functional organization of a single nif cluster in the mesophilic archaeon Methanosarcina mazei strain Gö1 1 1 1,2 CLAUDIA EHLERS, KATHARINA VEIT, GERHARD GOTTSCHALK and RUTH A. 1,3 SCHMITZ 1 Abteilung Allgemeine Mikrobiologie, Institut für Mikrobiologie und Genetik der Georg-August-Universität, Grisebachstr. 8, 37077 Göttingen, Germany 2 Göttingen Genomics Laboratory, Institut für Mikrobiologie und Genetik der Georg-August-Universität, Grisebachstr. 8, 37077 Göttingen, Germany 3 Author to whom correspondence should be addressed (rschmit@gwdg.de) Received June 6, 2002; accepted July 10, 2002; published online July 29, 2002 Summary The mesophilic methanogenic archaeon Meth- ase reductase is a homodimer with a single [4Fe-4S]-cluster anosarcina mazei strain Gö1 is able to utilize molecular nitro- linking the subunits and is encoded by nifH (Georgiadis et al. gen (N2) as its sole nitrogen source. We have identified and 1992, Rees and Howard 1999 and papers cited therein). In bac- characterized a single nitrogen fixation (nif ) gene cluster in teria, the genes nifH, nifD and nifK, which encode the molyb- M. mazei Gö1 with an approximate length of 9 kbp. Sequence denum-containing nitrogenase, are typically found together in analysis revealed seven genes with sequence similarities to a single operon and are physically adjacent to other nif genes nifH, nifI , nifI , nifD, nifK, nifE and nifN, similar to other as part of a larger nif regulon. Downstream of nifK, the nifE 1 2 diazotrophic methanogens and certain bacteria such as Clostri-