Abstract
Previous observations have suggested, that the ability of certain Rhizobium strains to develop nitrogenase activity in culture (and analogously in bacteroids) may be dependent upon a structurally distinctive RNA polymerase. (1) The expression of nitrogen fixation was selectively more sensitive to rifampicin inhibition than cellular growth (Werner, 1978; Pankhurst et al., 1981). (2) Slow-growing Rhizobium strains able to derepress nitrogenase activity in culture were more resistant to rifampicin than strains unable to express nitrogenase (Pankhurst et al., 1982). (3) Several rifampicin-resistant mutants of both slow- and fast-growing Rhizobium strains formed ineffective nodules (Pankhurst, 1977; Pain, 1979). In this work we have used purified RNA polymerase from R. japonicum to test, (i) if modifications of RNA polymerase occur under nitrogen fixing conditions, and (ii) to detect strains with mutationally altered RNA polymerases that could have a selective influence on nitrogen fixation.
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