Melanins, the ubiquitous hetero-polymer pigments found widely dispersed among various life forms, are usually dark brown/black in colour. Although melanins have variety of biological functions, including protection against ultraviolet radiation of sunlight and are used in medicine, cosmetics, extraction of melanin from the animal and plant kingdoms is not an easy task. Using complementary physi...

A transconjugant of Azotobacter chroococcum Mac 27 tagged with lac Z(A. chroococcum Mac27 L) was found to possess high levels of β-galactosidase activity constitutively. Further, the lac Z marker was found to be stably integrated into the chromosome of the A. chroococcum Mac 27 and did not have any adverse effect on growth, nitrogen fixation and excretion of ammonia. A quick method to determine...

Bell pepper is an important vegetable crop containing lots of bioactive compounds. The present study was designed to improve the productivity and quality bell with application arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Rhizophagus irregularis) plant growth-promoting bacteria (Azotobacter chroococcum) in a combination chemical fertilizer. Five treatments consisted 75% fertilizer (T1), 100% (T2), + R. irregul...

Four types of utilization of nitrate nitrogen were observed with fourteen strains of the azotobacter. These were: (a) Those which utilize NO;-N with no or only a short lag; three strains of Azotobacter winelandii, a stock culture of A. chroococcum C-77, and seven strains of A. chrmoccum freshly isolated from soil were in this group; (b) A single strain, a stock culture of A. chroococcum C-44, w...

The presence of Azotobacter sp. in soils has beneficial effects on plants, but the abundance of these bacteria is related to many factors, especially soil pH and fertility. The presented study evaluated the abundance of Azotobacter sp. in various soils of southern Poland and confirmed the relationship between soil properties and the presence of these bacteria. Diagnostic tests indicate that all...

The chelating agents EDTA, o-phenanthroline, nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA), ethylenediamine-bis(o-hydroxyphenylacetic acid) (EDDA) or dimethylglyoxime prevented the expression of hydrogenase activity in batch cultures of nitrogen-fixing Azotobacter chroococcum, but did not inhibit preformed enzyme. The inhibition was reversed either by adding a mixture of trace elements (Cu2+, Mn2+, Zn2+, Co2+) o...

Naranjilla (Solanum quitoense) is a perennial shrub plant mainly cultivated in Ecuador, Colombia, and Central America where it represents an important cash crop. Current cultivation practices not only cause deforestation and large-scale soil degradation but also make plants highly susceptible to pests and diseases. The use of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) can offer a possibility to overcom...

In crude cell-free extracts of Azotobacter chroococcum, nitrogenase was much less sensitive to irreversible inactivation by O2 than was the purified enzyme. When nitrogenase was partially purified by anaerobic discontinuous sucrose-density-gradient centrifugation, O2-tolerance was retained. This preparation was considerably enriched in four polypeptides, three of which were derived from the Mo-...