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Query: EC:1.7.1.4 (nitrite reductase)
1,847 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

In higher plants, the expression of the nitrate assimilation pathway is highly regulated. Although the molecular mechanisms involved in this regulation are currently being elucidated, very little is known about the trans-acting factors that allow expression of the nitrate and nitrite reductase genes which code for the first enzymes in the pathway. In the fungus Neurospora crassa, nit-2, the major nitrogen regulatory gene, activates the expression of unlinked structural genes that specify nitrogen-catabolic enzymes during conditions of nitrogen limitation. The nit-2 gene encodes a regulatory protein containing a single zinc finger motif defined by the C-X2-C-X17-C-X2-C sequence. This DNA-binding domain recognizes the promoter region of N. crassa nitrogen-related genes and fragments derived from the tomato nia gene promoter. The observed specificity of the binding suggests the existence of a NIT2-like homolog in higher plants. PCR and cross-hybridization techniques were used to isolate, respectively, a partial cDNA from Nicotiana plumbaginifolia and a full-length cDNA from Nicotiana tabacum. These clones encode a NIT2-like protein (named NTL1 for nit-2-like), characterized by a single zinc finger domain, defined by the C-X2-C-X18-C-X2-C amino acids, and associated with a basic region. The amino acid sequence of NTL1 is 60% homologous to the NIT2 sequence in the zinc finger domain. The Ntl1 gene is present as a unique copy in the diploid N. plumbaginifolia species. The characteristics of Ntl1 gene expression are compatible with those of a regulator of the nitrate assimilation pathway, namely weak nitrate inducibility and regulation by light.
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PMID:A tobacco cDNA clone encoding a GATA-1 zinc finger protein homologous to regulators of nitrogen metabolism in fungi. 841 86

Eleven green individuals were isolated when 95000 M2 plants of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), mutagenised with azide in the M1, were screened for nitrite accumulation in their leaves after nitrate treatment in the light. The selected plants were maintained in aerated liquid culture solution containing glutamine as sole nitrogen source. Not all plants survived to flowering and some others that did were not fertile. One of the selected plants, STA3999, from the cultivar Tweed could be crossed to the wild-type cultivar and analysis of the F2 progeny showed that leaf nitrite accumulation was due to a recessive mutation in a single nuclear gene, which has been designated Nir1. The homozygous nir1 mutant could be maintained to flowering in liquid culture with either glutamine or ammonium as sole nitrogen source, but died within 14 days after transfer to compost. The nitrite reductase cross-reacting material seen in nitrate-treated wild-type plants could not be detected in either the leaf or the root of the homozygous nir1 mutant. Nitrite reductase activity, measured with dithionite-reduced methyl viologen as electron donor, of the nitrate-treated homozygous nir1 mutant was much reduced but NADH-nitrate reductase activity was elevated compared to wild-type plants. We conclude that the Nir1 locus determines the formation of nitrite reductase apoprotein in both the leaf and root of barley and speculate that it represents either the nitrite reductase apoprotein gene locus or, less likely, a regulatory locus whose product is required for the synthesis of nitrite reductase, but not nitrate reductase.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:nir1, a conditional-lethal mutation in barley causing a defect in nitrite reduction. 843 74

Klebsiella pneumoniae can use nitrate and nitrite as sole nitrogen sources during aerobic growth. Assimilatory nitrate and nitrite reductases convert nitrate through nitrite to ammonium. We report here the molecular cloning of the nasA and nasB genes, which encode assimilatory nitrate and nitrite reductase, respectively. These genes are tightly linked and probably form a nasBA operon. In vivo protein expression and DNA sequence analysis revealed that the nasA and nasB genes encode 92- and 104-kDa proteins, respectively. The NASA polypeptide is homologous to other prokaryotic molybdoenzymes, and the NASB polypeptide is homologous to eukaryotic and prokaryotic NADH-nitrite reductases. The narL gene product positively regulates expression of the structural genes for respiratory nitrate reductase, narGHJI. Surprisingly, we found that the nasBA operon is tightly linked to the narL-narGHJI region in K. pneumoniae, even though the nitrate assimilatory and respiratory enzymes serve different physiological functions.
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PMID:Structures of genes nasA and nasB, encoding assimilatory nitrate and nitrite reductases in Klebsiella pneumoniae M5al. 846 96

NRE, the nitrogen regulatory protein of Penicillium chrysogenum, contains a single Cys2/Cys2-type zinc-finger motif followed immediately by a highly basic region. The zinc-finger domain was expressed to Escherichia coli as a fusion protein with beta-galactosidase. In order to test the putative DNA-binding ability of NRE, the intergenic promoter region of the nitrate reductase/nitrite reductase gene cluster (niiA-niaD) of Penicillium was sequenced. Our results show that NRE is a DNA-binding protein and binds to the intergenic promoter regions of the P. chrysogenum niiA-niaD and acvA-pcbC gene cluster, encoding the first two enzymes in penicillin biosynthesis. Three of the four high-affinity NRE-binding sites contained two GATA core elements. In one of the recognition sites for NRE, one GATA motif was replaced by GATT. The two GATA elements showed all possible orientations, head-to-head, head-to-tail and tail-to-tail, and were separated by between 4 and 27 bp. Missing-contact analysis showed that all three purines in both of the GATA core sequences and the single adenine residue in each of the complementary TATC sequences were involved in the binding of NRE. Moreover, loss of purines in the flanking regions of the GATA elements also affect binding of NRE, as their loss causes reduced affinity.
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PMID:NRE, the major nitrogen regulatory protein of Penicillium chrysogenum, binds specifically to elements in the intergenic promoter regions of nitrate assimilation and penicillin biosynthetic gene clusters. 859 Apr 70

This work reports the isolation and preliminary characterization of Nicotiana plumbaginifolia mutants resistant to methylammonium. Nicotiana plumbaginifolia plants cannot grow on low levels of nitrate in the presence of methylammonium. Methylammonium is not used as a nitrogen source, although it can be efficiently taken up by Nicotiana plumbaginifolia cells and converted into methylglutamine, an analog of glutamine. Glutamine is known to repress the expression of the enzymes that mediate the first two steps in the nitrate assimilatory pathway, nitrate reductase (NR) and nitrite reductase (NiR). Methylammonium has therefore been used, in combination with low concentrations of nitrate, as a selective agent in order to screen for mutants in which the nitrate pathway is de-repressed. Eleven semi-dominant mutants, all belonging to the same complementation group, were identified. The mutant showing the highest resistance to methylammonium was not affected either in the utilization of ammonium, accumulation of methylammonium or in glutamine synthase activity. A series of experiments showed that utilization of nitrite by the wild-type and the mutant was comparable, in the presence or the absence of methylammonium, thus suggesting that the mutation specifically affected nitrate transport or reduction. Although NR mRNA levels were less repressed by methylammonium treatment of the wild-type than the mutant, NR activities of the mutant remained comparable with or without methylammonium, leading to the hypothesis that modified expression of NR is probably not responsible for resistance to methylammonium. Methylammonium inhibited nitrate uptake in the wild-type but had only a limited effect in the mutant. The implications of these results are discussed.
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PMID:Methylammonium-resistant mutants of Nicotiana plumbaginifolia are affected in nitrate transport. 860 51

Klebsiella pneumoniae can use nitrate and nitrite as sole nitrogen sources during aerobic growth. Nitrate is converted through nitrite to ammonium by assimilatory nitrate and nitrite reductase, respectively. Enzymes required for nitrate assimilation are encoded by the nasFEDCBA operon of K. pneumoniae; nasF operon expression is subject to both general nitrogen control and pathway-specific nitrate/nitrite induction, mediated by the NtrC and NasR proteins, respectively. Sequence inspection revealed a presumptive sigmaN (sigma54)-dependent promoter as well as two presumptive upstream NtrC protein binding sites. Site-specific mutational and primer extension analyses confirmed the identity of the sigmaN-dependent promoter. Deletions removing the apparent NtrC protein binding sites greatly reduced NtrC-dependent regulation, indicating that these sites are involved in general nitrogen control. However, deletions removing most of the sequence upstream of the promoter had little effect on nitrate/nitrite regulation, suggesting that the nasF leader region is involved in nitrate/nitrite regulation. The 119 nucleotide long transcribed leader region contains an apparent factor-independent transcription terminator. Promoter replacement experiments demonstrated that the leader region is involved in nitrate/nitrite regulation of nasF operon expression. Deletions removing the transcription terminator structure resulted in a nitrate-blind constitutive phenotype, indicating that the transcription terminator structure serves a negative function. Other deletions, removing proximal portions of the leader region, resulted in an uninducible phenotype, indicating that this region serves a positive function. These results indicate that nitrate/nitrite regulation of nasF operon expression is determined by a transcription attenuation mechanism. We hypothesize that in the absence of nitrate or nitrite, the terminator structure abrogates transcription readthrough into the nasF operon. In the presence of nitrate or nitrite, the NasR protein mediates transcription antitermination, thereby allowing transcription to proceed into the nasF operon.
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PMID:Nitrate and nitrite-mediated transcription antitermination control of nasF (nitrate assimilation) operon expression in Klebsiella pheumoniae M5al. 860 28

A mutant (M45) of the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7942, which is defective in active transport of nitrate, was used for the studies of the nitrogen regulation of the genes involved in nitrate and CO2 assimilation. In a medium containing 30 mM nitrate as the nitrogen source, M45 grew under constant stress of nitrogen deficiency and accumulated a five-times-larger amount of the transcript of nirA, the gene for nitrite reductase, compared with nitrate-grown wild-type cells. By contrast, the level of the transcript of rbcL, the gene for the large subunit of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, was 40% of the wild-type level. Addition of ammonium to the culture of M45 abolished the accumulation of the nirA transcript and stimulated the accumulation of the rbcL transcript, showing that ammonium repressed and activated the transcription of nirA and rbcL, respectively. Glutamine, the initial product of ammonium fixation, also showed negative and positive effects on nirA and rbcL, respectively. One of the metabolites of glutamine, carbamoylphosphate, and its decomposition product, cyanate, were found to repress nirA and also to markedly activate rbcL. Cyanate negatively regulated another ammonium-repressible gene, glnA, but had no effect on the psbAI and rps1 genes. The effects of cyanate were not ascribable to the ammonium and CO, resulting from its decomposition. These findings suggested that cyanate may act as a regulator of the ammonium-responsive genes involved in carbon and nitrogen assimilation in the cyanobacterium.
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PMID:Regulation by cyanate of the genes involved in carbon and nitrogen assimilation in the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7942. 862 39

The nitrate reductase gene (niaD) and nitrite reductase gene (niiA) of Aspergillus parasiticus are clustered and are divergently transcribed from a 1.6-kb intergenic region (niaD-niiA). The deduced aminoacid sequence of the A. parasiticus nitrate reductase demonstrated a high degree of homology to those of other Aspergillus species, as well as to Leptosphaeria maculans, Fusarium oxysporum, Gibberella fujikuroi and Neurospora crassa, particularly in the cofactor-binding domains for molybdenum, heme and FAD. A portion of the deduced nitrite reductase sequence was homologous to those of A. nidulans and N. crassa. The nucleotide sequences in niaD-niiA of A. parasiticus and of A. oryzae were 95% identical, indicating that these two species are closely related. Several GATA motifs, the recognition sites for the N. crassa positive-acting global regulatory protein NIT2 in nitrogen metabolism, were found in A. parasiticus niaD-niiA. Two copies of the palindrome TCCGCGGA and other partial palindromic sequences similar to the target sites for the pathway specific regulatory proteins, N. crassa NIT4 and A. nidulans NirA, in nitrate assimilation, were also identified. A recombinant protein containing the A. nidulans AreA (the NIT2 equivalent) zinc finger and an adjacent basic region was able to bind to segments of niaD-niiA encompassing the GATA motifs. These results suggest that the catalytic and regulatory mechanisms of nitrate assimilation are well conserved in Aspergillus.
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PMID:Characterization of the Aspergillus parasiticus niaD and niiA gene cluster. 866 12

The nitrite reductase-encoding gene (YNI1) from the yeast Hansenula polymorpha was isolated from a lambda EMBL3 H. polymorpha genomic DNA library, using as a probe a 481 bp DNA fragment from the gene of Aspergillus nidulans encoding nitrite reductase (niiA). An open reading frame of 3132 bp, encoding a putative protein of 1044 amino acids with high similarity with nitrite reductases from fungi, was located by DNA sequencing in the phages lambdaNB5 and lambdaJA13. Genes YNI1 and YNR1 (encoding nitrate reductase) are clustered, separated by 1700 bp. Northern blot analysis showed that expression of YNI1 and YNR1 is co-ordinately regulated; induced by nitrate and nitrite and repressed by sources of reduced nitrogen, even in the presence of nitrate. A mutant lacking nitrite reductase activity was obtained by deletion of the chromosomal copy of YNI1. The mutant does not grow in nitrate or in nitrite; it exhibits a similar level of transcription of YNR1 to the wild type, but the nitrate reductase enzymic activity is only about 50% of the wild type. In the presence of nitrate the delta ynil::URA3 mutant extrudes approx. 24 nmol of nitrite/h per mg of yeast (wet weight), about five times more than the wild type.
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PMID:The genes YNI1 and YNR1, encoding nitrite reductase and nitrate reductase respectively in the yeast Hansenula polymorpha, are clustered and co-ordinately regulated. 869 91

An operon including two new genes (nasS and nasT) has been defined, cloned and sequenced. The deduced NASS protein is homologous to NRTA from Synechococcus sp. and to NASF from Klebsiella pneumoniae, two proteins involved in nitrate uptake. The predicted NAST polypeptide is homologous to the regulator proteins of the two-component regulatory systems. NASS plays a negative regulatory role in the synthesis of the nitrate and nitrite reductase. NAST is required for the expression of the nitrite-nitrate reductase operon (nasAB). Expression of the nasST operon is not under the control of the NTR system and is not regulated by the nitrogen source. A Phi(nasA-lacZ) fusion has been used to analyse expression of the nasAB operon in three different genetic backgrounds with altered nitrate reductase activity. Beta-galactosidase activity in two of them was independent of nitrate but in a mutant unable to reduce nitrate, nas-4, it was normally induced by nitrate.
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PMID:nasST, two genes involved in the induction of the assimilatory nitrite-nitrate reductase operon (nasAB) of Azotobacter vinelandii. 874 40


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