Weizmann Institute of Science scientists have engineered bacteria to create sugar from the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide
All life on Earth is based, in one way or another, on carbon fixation: the ability of certain plants, algae and bacteria to "suck" carbon dioxide (CO2) from the environment and convert it - with the help of solar energy - into sugars that are used as a necessary starting material for processes Life (a process called carbon fixation). At the top of the food chain, there are various creatures (some of which believe, perhaps mistakenly, that they are "more advanced"), which work in the opposite direction: they consume sugars (produced by the productive creatures and plants) and "in return", release carbon dioxide into the environment. This way of breeding is known as "heterotropism" or in Hebrew "consumerism". Humans are of course "consumers" in the biological sense because the source of all the food we consume comes from carbon fixation processes of non-human producers.
Is it possible to "reprogram" a creature that is at the top of the food chain, consumes sugars and releases carbon dioxide, so that it uses carbon dioxide from the environment, and produces the sugars it needs to build its body? It turns out that this is exactly what Weizmann Institute of Science scientists did recently. Dr. Niv Antonovsky, who led the research in the laboratory of Prof. Ron Milo in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, says that the ability to improve carbon sequestration is essential to our ability to face future challenges such as the need to provide food for a growing population, on diminishing land resources, while reducing the use of coal, oil and gas natural.
The institute's scientists, who wanted to prepare for the challenge, decided to try to introduce the metabolic pathway that carries out carbon fixation and sugar production (the Kelvin cycle) into the bacterium E. coli, which is actually known as a "consumer" - a creature that eats sugar and releases carbon dioxide.
The metabolic pathway of carbon fixation is well known, and Prof. Milo and his group members estimated that with proper planning they would be able to add the genes that contain the information necessary for its construction to the genome of the bacteria. However, the main enzyme used to fix carbon, Rubisco, works with a substance that participates in metabolism (metabolite) that is known to be toxic to bacterial cells. Therefore, the renewed genetic design of the bacterium had to include the precise regulation of the expression levels of the various genes, over a multi-step pathway.
In a sense, the research team's well-planned plan succeeded: the bacteria did produce carbon-fixing enzymes, and they worked properly. But the mechanism, as a whole, did not do its job and "did not deliver the goods". Dr. Antonovsky: "Of course, we are dealing with an organism that has evolved over millions of years to eat sugar, not carbon dioxide. That's why we decided to harness evolution to help us create the system we intended."
Dr. Antonovsky, Prof. Milo and the members of the research group, including Dr. Yehudit Zohar, former research student Dr. Arn Bar-Evan, research students Shmuel Glazer and Elad Hertz and other researchers, grew the bacteria and pushed them - slowly and gradually - to develop an appetite for carbon Dioxide. At the beginning, along with bubbles of carbon dioxide that bubbled generously in the containers, the bacteria were also offered a substance (pyruvate) that could be a source of energy, as well as a very small amount of sugar, which is barely enough for survival. Thus, by changing the environmental conditions, and creating a strain, the scientists forced the bacteria to learn, through adaptation and development, to utilize the more common material in their environment. A month later, the situation has hardly changed. The bacteria refused to "get the hint". But after about a month and a half, certain bacteria began to show signs that they are not "just surviving". In the third month, the scientists were able to wean the developed bacteria off the sugar and grow them on carbon dioxide and pyruvate only. Isotopic labeling of the carbon dioxide molecules revealed that this was indeed the substance used by the bacteria to create a significant part of their body mass, including all the sugars needed to create the cell.
At this stage, the scientists sequenced the genome of the developed bacteria, and found many changes scattered throughout it. "They were completely different from our predictions," says Prof. Milo. "It took us two years of hard work to understand which of these changes are really essential, and to decipher the 'logic' that lies at the base of the development they have undergone." Repeating the experiment (and waiting another month) gave the scientists vital clues to identify the mutations necessary to change the nutritional habits of the E bacteria. coli, so instead of consuming sugar, they will consume carbon dioxide.
Prof. Milo: "The ability to program or reengineer E. coli bacteria so that they fix carbon, may give researchers a new toolbox for studying and improving this basic process." In the current implementation, the bacteria are required to get their energy from a source that already has carbon in it and emit it into the air. In the future, the scientists predict, it will be possible to apply the insights gained in this research to the design or engineering of bacteria that will absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into stored energy. In the longer term, the research's insights may teach us how to increase agricultural yields through carbon sequestration pathways that are better suited to feeding a growing world population.
More of the topic in Hayadan:
30 תגובות
Trollic and a half.
Thank you for your obsession with me.
Can you point to your one and only response in which place and at which time that is not only about me?
Sarolik
Do you remember the movie "Flowers for Algernon"? Put yourself in his place. He is your double.
Sarolik
They only send you digital flowers. Do you remember the movie "Flowers for Algernon"?
Thanks Trollik
(The fans don't give rest..).
Sarolik
There is one and a half and there is Moshe, each separately and they both love you.
Half past one, weren't you Moshe yesterday?
Hello Sarolik
What's new? did you wake up We haven't heard from you in a while. I understand you are back from Stockholm. Congratulations on receiving the Nobel Prize.
Yoda
From the formula this pyruvate sounds a bit cocoa. Isn't it better to educate the microbes to photosynthesize like everyone else and close the deal?
Israel Shapira
From Wikipedia: Pyruvate (in English: Pyruvate) is a small organic compound of utmost importance in all [
The live productions.
CH3COCOOH
To Daniel' to her
Everything you wrote is true but does not belong. We do not use energy to produce the same amount of energy. Instead of running and calling me someone who doesn't understand anything, etc., etc., so please dig a little deeper and maybe you'll get to the bottom of my humble opinion. I don't understand much about science, but it's A, B, of science and every kid in Genon knows it.
Except maybe Danny, my boy is nice.
Good Day
And again, please respond gently
Yehuda
Yodla
When you extract oil from the ground and transport it to a power station, you also use up energy to create energy. You need energy to pump the oil out of the ground, you need energy for the ships that transport the oil to power plants. conclusion. You keep spewing nonsense in commercial quantities.. I'm sorry but you don't have a great understanding of science.
Yehuda, in the full article it is indeed detailed that the current situation - the introduction of carbon for the benefit of carbon fixation - is an intermediate stage on the way to the introduction of energy for carbon fixation. The article developed the ability to make synthetic carbon that did not exist before, and the future goal is to make it on the basis of renewable energy and not on the basis of energy produced from organic carbon materials.
Yoda
Every microbe knows from infancy how to consume energy and convert it into PDH, and many do. The real trick is to reverse the local entropy, like the plants do.
But as far as I understand, this pyruvate is the source of energy (not that I have any idea what pyruvate is).
Maya
These bacteria are supposed to produce fuel from the carbon dioxide. If in order to produce fuel we put fuel into them, then we did nothing and only expenses, but if we took the carbon dioxide and free sunlight and free water and they produced fuel for us, then we profited!. That's what it means
Good night
Yehuda
Yehuda
I don't understand what you said. Of course you have to put in energy to get energy. This is what the biological system does - converts one type of energy into another type of energy - useless energies into useful energies. Am I missing something?
rival
Your idea is not acceptable to me to say the least. Put energy into the bacteria to get…. energy?, so what was the use of sages??, I believe that the bacteria will also use the process of photosynthesis for this purpose.
The article should have elaborated on the subject, in my opinion.
Yehuda
A really cool experiment in my opinion, I really liked the idea, the execution and the results. This is how science is done, evolution in front of our eyes and there are still those who deny it.
hazel,
It may have been the substitute for solar energy:
"Along with bubbles of carbon dioxide that bubbled generously in the containers, the bacteria were also offered a substance (pyruvate) that could be a source of energy."
In photosynthesis, the source of energy is light. The process of releasing carbon dioxide is an endothermic process. What is the energy source of the bacteria?
It is quite similar to the process of photosynthesis in plants, except that the process is also based on light radiation and in addition to sugars, oxygen molecules are also formed, here according to what I understand the process is slightly different.
Yehuda,
Yes, carbon dioxide and water contain oxygen atoms that are used to create the sugars, I thought you were talking about free oxygen molecules that are in the air because that is the concern implied by the first comments written here.
Assuming that the bacteria will produce the sugar glucose C6H12O6, they will be able to get the H from the water and from there the oxygen. Simple chemistry. Personal Knowledge.
Please respond gently
Yehuda
Yehuda,
"During the sugar production process, the bacteria will also use a lot of oxygen which they will take from the water or the air"
I'm curious, what are your words based on?
Or are you confused too?
Yes, I read the article with great interest.
I mentioned oxygen by mistake, I meant carbon dioxide. If the bacterium multiplies without control and the only thing that will limit its culture is PDH, it will continue to multiply until the PDH level drops to a level that is not enough for it.
At the moment we are captive to the concept that PAD is a bad thing that must be found ways to get rid of it, but it is only bad because it is currently in excess in the atmosphere. If he is lacking, we will be in a different problem.
Yehuda,
What are your words based on?
I did not see a mention of such a thing in the article, and regarding competition with the plants... it seems to me that there is enough carbon dioxide for everyone, at the moment the problem is how to get rid of it.
to the opponent and others
In the process of producing sugars, the bacteria will also use a lot of oxygen which they will take from the water or the air. But such a bacterium that escapes into the world's air may compete with the plants' photosynthesis process and cause the plants to fail enormously. I would prefer that this problem be investigated. If it is not serious, then these bacteria, which will reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, have a supreme benefit, and also in the problem of global warming.
Yehuda
Are you sure you read the article? We are talking here about bacteria that, like plants, consume carbon dioxide (the same carbon dioxide we emit in our breathing process) and turn it into sugars for the body to use.
What danger are you talking about? Where was the consumption of oxygen mentioned here? On the contrary, such bacteria may only be beneficial and help clean the atmosphere of carbon dioxide that causes global warming.
I agree with the two commenters before me.
Amazing and dangerous are exactly the two things that came to my mind while reading.
It is interesting if the leakage of such transgenic bacteria could cause a decrease in the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere and the elimination of plant species.
Amazing! Fascinating article!
One such bacterium that leaks out of the laboratory and manages to survive could be a very serious problem if it finds a niche where it can survive and continue its evolution.