File:Nitrogen_Cycle.svg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
nitrogen fixation
Sign in to saveAlso known as GO:0009399
process which converts nitrogen from the air into compounds such as ammonia
Research
17,456 papers- Biological nitrogen fixation in cereal crops: Progress, strategies, and perspectives.Plant communications · 2023
- Unsolved mysteries in marine nitrogen fixation.Trends in microbiology · 2024
- Transfer of Nitrogen Fixation (nif) Genes to Non-diazotrophic Hosts.Chembiochem : a European journal of chemical biology · 2020
- Energy sensors: emerging regulators of symbiotic nitrogen fixation.Trends in plant science · 2024
- Cooperative interactions between nitrogen fixation and phosphorus nutrition in legumes.The New phytologist · 2023
via PubMed
Wikidata facts
Show 2 more facts
- Commons category
- Nitrogen fixation
- exact match
- purl.obolibrary.org/obo/GO_0009399
Sources (6)
via Wikidata · CC0
~17 min read
Article
Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular dinitrogen (N 2) is converted into ammonia (NH 3). It occurs both biologically and abiologically in chemical industries. Biological nitrogen fixation or diazotrophy is catalyzed by enzymes called nitrogenases. These enzyme complexes are encoded by the Nif genes (or Nif homologs) and contain iron, often with a second metal (usually molybdenum, but sometimes vanadium).
Some nitrogen-fixing bacteria have symbiotic relationships with plants, especially legumes, mosses, and aquatic ferns such as Azolla. Looser non-symbiotic relationships between diazotrophs and plants are often referred to as associative, as seen in nitrogen fixation on rice roots. Nitrogen fixation occurs between some termites and fungi. It occurs naturally in the air by means of NOx production by lightning.