ArticlePloS one2012
A comprehensive evaluation of PCR primers to amplify the nifH gene of nitrogenase.
Article in PloS one, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 134 papers.
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Who cites it
134 citing papers in PubMed, 386 citations in OpenAlex.
- Response of nitrogen-fixing plant symbioses to changing temperature.Journal of integrative plant biology · 2026Review
- Chronic Nitrogen Deposition Alters Diazotrophic Community Composition, Reduces Biological Nitrogen Fixation, and Restructures Fungal-Diazotroph CO-Occurrence Networks in Deadwood.Microbial ecology · 2026Article
- Integrated genomic and phenotypic analysis of an endophytic bacterium reveals biocontrol and plant growth-promoting mechanisms.iScience · 2026Article
- Bioprospecting of the Phylum Bacteroidota for Sustainable Agriculture.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Isolation of N-Fixing Bacteria from Warm-Season Pasture Grasses and the Evaluation of Nitrogen Effects on the Bacterial Communities Present inMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- The hidden potential of archaea in carbon and nitrogen cycling in agricultural soils: a review.Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Review
- Plant growth-promoting traits ofBiotechnology reports (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Transformative impact of three decades of nitrogen-based fertilization on diazotrophic communities and co-occurrence patterns in soils of Northeast China.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- Microbial community dynamics in two Central European peatlands affected by different nitrogen depositions.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2025Article
- Genetic Diversity and Growth-Promoting Functions of Endophytic Nitrogen-Fixing Bacteria in Apple.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Bacterial Isolation from Natural Grassland on Nitrogen-Free Agar Yields Many Strains Without Nitrogenase.Microorganisms · 2025Article
- Article
- Multiple Plant Growth-Promoting Activities Exhibited by Root-Associated Bacteria Isolated From Bamboo and Corn.International journal of microbiology · 2025Article
- Impact of Biochar on Nitrogen-Cycling Functional Genes: A Comparative Study in Mollisol and Alkaline Soils.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Evaluation of the potential of multi-trait PGPR isolates as inoculants for maize (Iranian journal of microbiology · 2024Article
- Genetic diversity, stress tolerance and phytobeneficial potential in rhizobacteria of Vachellia tortilis subsp. raddiana.Environmental microbiome · 2024Article
- Nitrogen fixation in the widely distributed marine γ-proteobacterial diazotrophScience advances · 2024Article
- Global soil metagenomics reveals distribution and predominance of Deltaproteobacteria in nitrogen-fixing microbiome.Microbiome · 2024Article
- Nitrogen-fixing bacterial communities differ between perennial agroecosystem crops.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Article
- Microbial species pool-mediated diazotrophic community assembly in crop microbiomes during plant development.mSystems · 2024Article
74 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
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 performed an in silico analysis of the specificity and coverage of 51 universal and 35 group-specific nifH primers by using an aligned database of 23,847 nifH sequences. We found that there are 15 universal nifH primers that target 90% or more of nitrogen fixers, but that there are also 23 nifH primers that target less than 50% of nifH sequences. The nifH primers we evaluated vary in their phylogenetic bias and their ability to recover sequences from commonly sampled environments. In addition, many of these primers will amplify genes that do not mediate nitrogen fixation, and thus it would be advisable for researchers to screen their sequencing results for the presence of non-target genes before analysis. Universal primers that performed well in silico were tested empirically with soil samples and with genomic DNA from a phylogenetically diverse set of nitrogen-fixing strains. This analysis will be of great utility to those engaged in molecular analysis of nifH genes from isolates and environmental samples.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.