Definition of "nitrogenase" [nitrogenase]

• An enzyme of nitrogen-fixing bacteria that catalyzes the conversion of nitrogen to ammonia. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Fortunately, natural selection has already devised the perfect solution: a bacterial enzyme known as nitrogenase, which can fix nitrogen at room temperature using only a collection of metal ions, including the unusual molybdenum ion, and a hefty dose of energy-giving ATP."
• "Time will tell whether these findings are relevant to how dinitrogen is reduced to ammonia in nature on a huge scale by nitrogenase enzymes."
• "Only a very limited number of organisms that possess nitrogenase, the enzyme able to cleave N2 at ambient temperature and at normal pressure, can perform this conversion."