Modeling crude-oil biodegradation in sediments remains a challenge due in part to the lack of appropriate model organisms. Here we report the metagenome-guided isolation of a novel organism that represents a phylogenetically narrow (97% 16S rRNA gene …
The measurement of functional gene abundance in diverse microbial communities often employs quantitative PCR (qPCR) with highly degenerate oligonucleotide primers. While degenerate PCR primers have been demonstrated to cause template-specific bias in …
Diazotrophic microorganisms are taxonomically and metabolically diverse and they populate a wide variety of habitats. Diazotroph diversity is typically quantified through the analysis of nitrogenase nifH gene sequences recovered from environmental …
We describe a nitrogenase gene sequence database that facilitates analysis of the evolution and ecology of nitrogen-fixing organisms. The database contains 32 954 aligned nitrogenase nifH sequences linked to phylogenetic trees and associated sequence …
The nifH gene is the most widely sequenced marker gene used to identify nitrogen-fixing Bacteria and Archaea. Numerous PCR primers have been designed to amplify nifH, but a comprehensive evaluation of nifH PCR primers has not been performed. We …