Abstract
Wilson and Burris1 reviewed the evidence implicating hydrogenase in biological nitrogen fixation and suggested two working hypotheses for the mechanism of nitrogen fixation which included the participation of hydrogenase. The relation between hydrogenase and nitrogen fixation was strengthened further when Kamen and Gest2 discovered Rhodospirillum rubrum to be a nitrogen fixer and found that nitrogen, either as such or as ammonium, inhibited its photoproduction of hydrogen. Purified hydrogenase preparations from Clostridium pasteurianum have shown spectral changes when exposed to nitrogen relative to spectra under hydrogen, oxygen, nitric oxide or a vacuum3. Although the initial report4 of hydrogenase in root-nodule bacteria was not verified by later, more extensive tests5 with nodules and bacteria from nodules, Wilson6 recently has reported that a preparation of disintegrated soy-bean nodules exhibited spectral shifts in the presence, as compared to the absence, of hydrogen, suggestive of the activity of a hydrogenase. The absence of a clear demonstration of hydrogenase in nodules often has been cited in discussion of the comparative biochemistry of nitrogen fixation as an irregularity. Evidence from the present communication removes this irregularity and establishes a further point of uniformity among nitrogen-fixing agents.
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References
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Shug, A. L., Hamilton, P. B., and Wilson, P. W., “Inorganic Nitrogen Metabolism”, 344 edit. by McElroy, W. D., and Glass, B. (Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 1956).
Phelps, A. S., and Wilson, P. W., Proc. Soc. Exp. Biol. and Med., 47, 473 (1941).
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Hoagland, D. R., and Arnon, D. I., University of California Agricultural Station Circular 347 (1938).
Burris, R. E., Magee, W. E., and Bach, M. K., Ann. Acad. Sci.Fennicae, Ser. A, II, 60, A. I. Vlrtanen Homage Vol., 190 (1955).
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HOCH, G., LITTLE, H. & BURRIS, R. Hydrogen Evolution from Soy-Bean Root Nodules. Nature 179, 430–431 (1957). https://doi.org/10.1038/179430a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/179430a0
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