Abstract
Nitrogen fixation by the cyanobacterium Anabaena is carried out in heterocysts, specialized, non-dividing cells which differentiate under conditions of ammonia or nitrate deprivation. In Anabaena, heterocyst differentiation is accompanied by rearrangement of some nitrogen fixation genes. A site-specific recombination between an 11 base-pair direct repeat sequence flanking the nif K and nif D genes removes 11 kilobases of intervening DNA, resulting in juxtaposition of the two genes and an alteration of the nif D protein-coding sequence.
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Golden, J., Robinson, S. & Haselkorn, R. Rearrangement of nitrogen fixation genes during heterocyst differentiation in the cyanobacterium Anabaena. Nature 314, 419–423 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1038/314419a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/314419a0
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