CO-DENITRIFICATION BY THE DENITRIFYING SYSTEM OF THE FUNGUS FUSARIUM-OXYSPORUM

Nitrogen compounds such as azide, salicylhydroxamic acid, and possibly ammonium ions were converted to nitrous oxide (N2O) or dinitrogen (N2) by Fusarium oxysporum under denitrifying conditions. Nitrogen atoms in these compounds were combined with another nitrogen atom from nitrite to form a hybrid N2O species. The fungus exhibited much higher converting activities as compared with similar reactions catalyzed by bacterial denitrifiers. We thus propose the phenomenon be called co-denitrification, which means that such nitrogen compounds are denitrified by the system induced by nitrite (or nitrate) but are incapable by themselves of inducing the denitrifying system.