Concurrent evolution of nitrogenase genes and 16SrRNA inRhizobiumspecies and other nitrogen fixing bacteria

摘要

It was known that nitrogenase genes and proteins are well conserved even though they are present in a large variety of phylogenetically diverse nitrogen fixing bacteria. This has lead to the speculation, among others, that nitrogen fixation (nif) genes were spread by lateral gene transfer relatively late in evolution. Here we report an attempt to test this hypothesis.