KNOW A SCIENTIST
Prof. Arthur Kornberg, an American biochemist, initially involved in studying the mechanisms of the enzymatic synthesis of coenzymes and inorganic pyrophosphate, and the biosynthesis of the nucleic acids, particularly DNA. After elucidating key steps in the pathways of pyrimidine and purine nucleotide synthesis, he found the enzyme that assembles the building blocks into DNA, named DNA polymerase, basis of discovery of recombinant DNA. Then he switched his research focus from DNA replication to inorganic polyphosphate (poly P), apolymer of phosphates that likely participated in prebiotic evolution.
He was honored with Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine 1959 for the discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid" together with Dr. Severo Ochoa of New York University.
Smallest Aquatic Bacterium Discovered
A team of researchers at the Cavanilles Institute of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology led by Professor Antonio Camacho and working in collaboration with the group of Professor Rodríguez-Valera, from Miguel Hernández University have discovered a new group of bacteria with different genetic characteristics in the ocean at a depth of around 50 meters. The new bacteria have been called 'Candidatus actinomarinidae'. Their numbers are higher during the autumn. The area of the oceans examined was the so-termed DCM-Deep Chlorophyll Maximum level. The oceans are abundant with microorganisms. It has been estimated that a million microscopic organisms live in just one milliliter of sea water. Marine bacteria are abundant and play critical roles in the ocean environment.
To find the new species, the researchers employed DNA sequencing techniques. From this analysis the researchers have declared that the new bacteria are the smallest free-living microorganisms described so far in terms of cell measure and also with respect to the size of their genetic make-up. The bacteria have biovolumes from 0.006 to 0.024 μm (average of 0.013 μm) and an average diameter of 0.292 μm. The finding has been published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, titled “Metagenomics uncovers a new group of low GC and ultra-small marine Actinobacteria.”
Marine Actinobacterial Clade Rhodopsins (MACrhodopsins)
Source: www.digitaljournal.com
Novel technology to produce gasoline by a metabolically-engineered microorganism
Scientists from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) succeeded in producing 580 mg of gasoline/L of cultured broth by converting in - vivo generated fatty acid.
For many decades, we have been relying on fossil resources to produce liquid fuels for daily use. Gasoline, the petroleum-derived product widely used as a fuel for transportation, is a mixture of hydrocarbons, additives and blending agents. The hydrocarbons, called alkanes, consist only of carbon and hydrogen atoms. Gasoline has a combination of straight-chain and branched-chain alkanes (hydrocarbons) consisted of 4-12 carbon atoms linked by direct carbon-carbon bonds. Previously, through metabolic engineering of Escherichia coli (E. coli), there have been a few research results on the production of long-chain alkanes, which consist of 13-17 carbon atoms, suitable for replacing diesel. However, there has been no report on the microbial production of short-chain alkanes, a possible substitute for gasoline.
In a paper (entitled "Microbial Production of Short-chain Alkanes") published online in Nature on September 29, Professor Sang Yup Lee of KAIST reported, for the first time, the development of a novel strategy for microbial gasoline production through metabolic engineering of E. coli.
Professor Sang Yup Lee said that it is only a beginning towards the formation of short-chain fatty acids and their derivatives and they are concentrating to increase the titre, yield and productivity of bio-gasoline. They also believe that the production of gasoline through the metabolic engineering of E. coli, for the first time, will serve as a basis for the metabolic engineering of microorganisms to produce fuels and chemicals from renewable resources.
E. coli bacteria
(Image Credit: CDC [Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons
Source: www.sciencedaily.com
