DETECTION OF THE NIFH GENE IN NITROGEN FIXING BACTERIA FROM AGRICULTURAL AREAS IN ERZURUM

Plant Growth Promoting Rhizospheric Bacteria (PGPR) are one of the most potential biofertilizer agents in agricultural applications. Biofertilizers have been used instead of chemical fertilizers last a few decades in the all over world because of their beneficial effects and crucial role in plant growth and health. There are many well know mechanisms are used for identification of active PGPR strains. Nitrogen-fixation is one of the most important mechanism between them. To date, the detection of nitrogen-fixing bacteria has been performed by the many various conventional methods. Recently, from a molecular perspective, the nifH gene has been widely used as a marker gene for microbial N-2 fixation. In this context, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the usability of the nifH gene specific primer sets for the selection of local nitrogen-fixing PGPR strains from agricultural areas in Erzurum. In this regard, our present study was conducted to test the presence nifH gene specific primer sets for determination of nitrogen-fixing capabilities of bacterial isolates from the agricultural regions of Erzurum. Consequently, the designed primer sets in the literature (nifH1/nifH2, Kadino/Emino and F2/R6) were used for detection of nifH gene. According to the PCR results, 5 bacteria with nifH1/nifH2 primer set, 2 bacteria with F2/R6 primer set, 1 bacteria with Kadino/Emino primer set were successfully amplificated.