Microbiologists have cracked the genetic code that allows bacteria to break down oil and petroleum. The researchers discovered that several bacterial strains have much greater potential than previously known. The findings may have important applications in providing a future response to oil and oil spills
[Translation by Dr. Nachmani Moshe]
Microbiologists have cracked the genetic code that allows bacteria to break down oil and petroleum. The researchers discovered that several bacterial strains have much greater potential than previously known. The findings may have important applications in providing a future response to oil and oil spills.
Microbiologists from the University of Austin were able to uncover the genetic code thanks to which bacteria were able to clean up the oil spill in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig incident and discovered that a number of bacterial strains have a much greater potential in discharging oil than previously known. The findings, published in the scientific journal Nature Microbiology, may have important applications in providing a future response to oil and oil spills.
Since the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, scientists have been studying how colonies of bacteria that thrived after the disaster helped digest most of the chemicals found there, but little was known about the genetic makeup underlying this process. Researchers from the University of Texas performed DNA sequencing of oil-degrading bacteria with the aim of revealing the genetic potential in different strains of bacteria, including new strains that have been discovered for a long time. "Oil is a particularly complex mixture, but it includes two main substances: alkanes, which the bacteria are able to break down relatively easily, and aromatic hydrocarbons, which are more difficult for the bacteria to break down," said the chief researcher. "We surprisingly found a number of bacterial strains that are able to properly deal with the more dangerous substances. This finding may have an important impact on future applications in the field of oil spill treatment.
One of the bacterial strains known as petroleum decomposers, Alcanivorax, was previously thought to be unable to break down the more stable hydrocarbons. Other strains, for example, Neptuniibacter, were not previously known to be oil decomposers. Not only did gene sequencing reveal that several bacterial strains are capable of breaking down aromatic hydrocarbons, it also demonstrated how different strains work together to maximize the genetic potential of the entire bacterial colony. "We used new methods to reveal the genome of bacterial strains that were not previously grown in laboratories in order to enrich our understanding of the mechanism by which they succeed in breaking down oil in nature," explains the researcher.
The scientists cataloged the genes of several strains of bacteria found in the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico in order to understand how the bacteria are able to break down the complicated mixture that makes up the oil, which includes about a thousand types of chemical compounds. The researchers located a number of mechanisms in which the bacteria that made up the complex and original colony work together to break down the oil. "The mechanism is similar to a concert," explains the lead researcher. "All the musicians must work together in order to create harmonious music." The gene sequences revealed, for example, that several strains of bacteria are capable of breaking down sulfur-containing compounds.
"Bacterial colonies that are originally at the site of the oil spill can respond quickly and efficiently, and thrive during the spill while breaking down the oil compounds," says the researcher. "This understanding illustrates the importance of preserving diverse and healthy bacterial colonies, and the need to be careful in our response to a leak while avoiding interfering with the natural response."
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Comments
And here is the best weapon against Iran
Prof. Zeev Eisenstadt from the Hebrew University was engaged all his academic life in cracking all kinds of hydrocarbons in oil - it's a shame that he is not mentioned at all in this article.
Besides, the members of the program "This is it" already presented twenty years ago "bacteria that break down a green line"... ☺
When the bacteria break down oil, they consume oxygen and thus deplete the oxygen concentration in the ocean.
That's why the breakdown of oil also has environmental consequences.
In the original article there is a reference to Taxa which is the plural form
of Taxon which refers to a taxon group,
I didn't see any reference to low sorting levels,
Therefore,
Wherever the translator wrote "species" there should have been a genus or species,
Because there is no "species" in the zoological classification,
There is a subspecies,
But again - "Zen" - Yuk!
It is worth using these bacteria in the oil spill of Ketza in the Araba. In Brazil, they use a genetically modified bacteria (probably protected by a patent). That does the opposite - and turns glucose into petroleum hydrocarbons. It seems that the price of oil will not rise much, because technologically, the shale in the USA has not gone bankrupt. As Saudi Arabia thought, when it lowered the price of oil.