Nitrogen regulation in bacteria and archaea

John A Leigh1, Jeremy A Dodsworth

  • 1Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-7242, USA. leighj@u.washington.edu

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Nitrogen is a very important element for life because it is a major constituent of proteins and nucleic acids. It is a macronutrient, and in nature, it is recycled from organic compounds and stored in the form of  ammonia, ammonium ions, nitrate, nitrite, or  nitrogen gas by many metabolic processes. Many of these metabolic processes are carried out only by prokaryotes.
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