Phylogenetic Analysis of Nitrogen-Fixing and Quorum Sensing Bacteria

The present study involves phylogenetic analysis of distinguished bacterial population essentiallygrouped into functional attributes, namely nitrogen fixation and quorum sensing. The basis of this analysisare protein sequences of NifH (nitrogenase reductase), LuxA (Luciferase alpha subunit) and LuxS (Sribosylhomocysteine lyase) from 30, 17, 25 species of bacteria respectively. These bacteria show vastdiversity in terms of habitat mode of survival pathogenicity. Phylogenetic analysis gives an insight into theevolution and interrelationships of these microbial species. GeneBee, ClustalW and Phylip softwares werefound to be satisfactory for the chosen work. Phylogenetic trees were constructed in the form ofCladograms, Phylograms and Unrooted radial trees. According to the results obtained, the most highlyevolved group of organisms with respect to their nitrogenase reductase protein is that of Desulfovibriovulgaris and Chlorobium phaeobacteriodes. Bacillus thuringiensis and Bacillus subtilis hold the most highlyevolved forms of LuxS protein. Also knowledge abtained from the motif pattern analysis betweenBradyrhizobium japonicum and Rhizobium leguminosarum NifH protein sequence are conserved and furtheranalysis may show that there may be quorum sensing mediated gene regulation in host bacteriuminteraction. Phylogenetic analyses, thus, on the basis of highly conserved protein domains, universal in theirexistence, can provide a preamble to the actual 16S-rRNA based phylogeny or genomic analyses ofphylogeny carried out in the wet lab.