Question

Which gene is used in nitrogen fixation?

Answer 1

Biological nitrogen fixation is a significant source of fixed nitrogen in soils and plays an important part in the nitrogen cycle. It is widely distributed among Bacteria and Archaea, however it is absent from eukaryotes. Termites, ferns, woody plants, and legumes all have symbiotic relationships with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which can be found in a number of settings, including soil and marine environments.

Complete answer:
The nifHDK genes are responsible for coding proteins that help plants fix atmospheric nitrogen into a form that they can use. Cyanobacteria and nitrogen-fixing bacteria both have the genes.
The process of bacterial nitrogen fixing is the enzymatic reduction of dinitrogen in the air to ammonium. This nifHDK gene codes for the nitrogenase enzyme. Inside the genome, this is a contagious arrangement.
The nif genes code for enzymes that aid in the conversion of atmospheric nitrogen into a form that can be used by living organisms. The nitrogenase complex is the principal enzyme encoded by the nif genes, and it is responsible for converting atmospheric nitrogen (N2) to other nitrogen forms such as ammonia, which the organism can utilise for a variety of reasons.
The nif genes also encode a variety of regulatory proteins involved in nitrogen fixation, in addition to the nitrogenase enzyme. Both free-living nitrogen-fixing bacteria and symbiotic bacteria associated with diverse plants include the nif genes. The nif genes are activated in response to low fixed nitrogen and oxygen concentrations (the low oxygen concentrations are actively maintained in the root environment of host plants). In the early 1980s, the first Rhizobium genes for nitrogen fixation (nif) and nodulation (nod) were cloned.

Note:-
Some bacteria have the unique ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia in natural settings, a reaction that can only be replicated on a large scale by a chemical process involving high temperatures, high pressure, and particular catalysts. Microorganisms' ability to utilise nitrogen gas as their only nitrogen supply and form symbiotic relationships with host plants has many ecological benefits, but it also has physiological consequences because the process is oxygen-sensitive and energy-dependent. As a result, sophisticated regulatory networks that respond to diverse environmental stimuli regulate biological nitrogen fixation at the transcriptional level.