Carbon Repository being Seized by an Oceanic Virus

Highlights

A virus seizing carbon emission discovered.
Synthesis of the protein that could help in seizing the carbon emission.
About P. marinus bacteria that is responsible for the carbon emission underwater.
Experiments and thought processes implemented by the scientist.
Role of E. coli in the experiment.
Final results achieved by using synthetic biological applications.

According to the scientists there lies a virus underneath the oceanic surface that is responsible for hijacking the existence of most widely available organism on earth that’s the bacteria. The main thing to understand regarding this is that this could be of utmost importance for our survival. This can be of interest to those who live above the ocean and inhale air for sustaining their existence. Scientists from Rice University investigated the function of ferredoxin proteins composed when phages adjust the capability of Prochlorococcus Marinus to accumulate carbon to retaliate the effect caused due to greenhouse gas emission. This greenhouse gas emission was happening due to the heavy non-renewable fuel expenditure.

About P. marinus

P. marinus is a cyanobacterium and also photosynthetic. This type of bacteria hales from the tropical and could also be found in the subtropical area. So the exciting thing to know about P. marinus is that approximately on an average about 10-to-the-27 (an octillion) among them prepare oxygen and store simultaneously about four gigatons of carbon in one year that means annually only by using sunlight. This stored carbon helps as a captious staple for other underwater living animals. It is also known that P. marinus and its carbon-seizing bacteria are careful about climate change. That is why it bears observing as climate change increases the ocean temperature and exceeds its reach. The increase of these organisms in the ocean could extend the overall carbon storage by these microbes. but according to certain recent discoveries, the virus could stop the annual leakage of carbon into the air from these bacteria by altering the carbon fixation.

Study’s Goal

According to Campbell, Rice postdoctoral researchers and lead author of the study, their study aims to explore different ways by using which viruses interact with their hosts. So while this study was going on the scientist discovered the phage wrests control of electron flow in the host recombining the metabolism of the bacteria. They further elaborated by stating that when the virus infects the microbe it does not allow the production of the bacterial protein to occur and restores it with its alternative. He even mentioned that he compares it with the different OS put on the computer.

Procedure Followed

The artificial biological procedure was used to mix and match phage and cyanobacteria produced protein to examine more deeply how does the interaction occur? Another scientist who is also the part of this research named George Phillips discovered for the first time the structure of the key cyanophage ferredoxin protein. It was said that the phage would go into the cell and would destroy everything by the top-level scientist working on this study named Jonathan Silberg who is also the director of the University’s Systems, Synthetic and physical biology program. But according to Lan, who is another scientist working on this program, phages are creating their difficult controlling mechanism. It was added by George that they are inserting their ferredoxins such as power cables, to make the electron flow regular. Thus then without wasting much time further the team decided to use synthetic biology tools to use much largely understood E. coli bacteria in their experiment for setting up a kind of interaction between the two artificially. E. coli was used as an agent that could express the genes required. The scientists already knew that it would not be easy to take phage and cyanobacteria from the ocean and then just start the research, particularly studying electron flow like that is not at all easy especially when you are using classical biochemistry for that matter.

Final Arrangement

At last then finally Lan opted partners from both the phage and the host, he then put them together by encoding their DNA in another cellular system, and then he was capable of procuring some amazing results out of that experiment. This is an amazing way by which synthetic biology could be used for understanding the much complex mechanism.

The researchers suspect that the protein they experimented in E. coli, the Prochlorococcus P-SSM2 phage ferredoxin is not new. People were already aware of the fact that phages encode various things that do electron transfer, but they were unaware of the way by which encoding is done between the phage and the host. The structure itself gives an idea of this phage being linked with the particular ancestral proteins convoluted in photosynthesis.

Source

Rice University Houston

Carbon Repository being Seized by an Oceanic Virus