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posted by martyb on Monday December 02 2019, @05:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-make-it-photosynthetic dept.

According to new research published Wednesday in the journal Cell, scientists using a combination of gene splicing and accelerated evolution techniques have made E. coli into an autotroph that produces its biomass using atmospheric carbon.

The study was carried out at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.

Prof. Ron Milo, of Weizmann’s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, in whose laboratory the research was carried out, explains that all organisms in nature are either “producers” or “consumers” of sugar and other foods, such as fats. The producers are algae, plants and a few kinds of bacteria living in extreme environments. These bacteria draw carbon dioxide from their environment and with the help of the sun’s energy, they fix it and create a complex molecule – like sugars – that are essential for life.

The rest of the organisms exist on the work of those plants and algae and are nourished by them – thus receiving the sugars they need to exist. In scientific terms, the “producers” are called “autotrophs” and the consumers heterotrophs. In Prof. Milo’s lab, the team worked for 10 years until they managed to turn a heteotrophic bacterium into an autotroph – from a consumer to a producer.

The bacteria currently require approximately 100x the concentration of CO2 present in the atmosphere to survive, but the scientists are working to reduce this further.

The next phase of the research, according to Milo, is to improve the efficiency of the carbon fixing process

Among the potential eventual applications are carbon neutral fuel production and scrubbing of CO2 during industrial processes.

Graphical Abstract
Journal Reference


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @05:39AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @05:39AM (#926999)

    In goes CO2. What comes out of it?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @05:54AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @05:54AM (#927004)

      >These bacteria draw carbon dioxide from their environment and with the help of the sun’s energy, they fix it and create a complex molecule – like sugars – that are essential for life.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @07:58AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @07:58AM (#927031)

    So, this works in a lab, with very strict conditions. What happens when those strict conditions are loosened? Life isn't going to put work into something if survival can be reached with easier methods. Throw some sugars in the bottle and see the trick they managed to "evolve" disappear. I can easilly see two other directions in which they can continue their research, which would be more interesting from a scientific point of view than "make it more efficient".

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday December 02 2019, @10:51AM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 02 2019, @10:51AM (#927058) Journal

    What's wrong with would? Some can even build skyscrapers out of it [theguardian.com].

    What's wrong with algae? Already specialized to "create a complex molecule – like sugars". Feed them appropriately and they produce sugars more efficiently than sugar cane [wikipedia.org].

    I mean, other than the patent holders, who can benefit from and engineered E Coli that needs a molecule of formate (HCOO-) for CO2 conversion?

    ----

    The linky is direct to TFA [cell.com] which is open-access published under CC BY 4.0

    Here, we report the establishment of synthetic autotrophy inE. coli.Our engineeredE. colistrain uses the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle (CBB, also referred to as Calvin cycle forshort) for carbon fixation and harvests energy and reducingpower from the one-carbon molecule formate (HCOO-), which can be produced electrochemically.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 03 2019, @04:48PM (1 child)

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday December 03 2019, @04:48PM (#927698) Journal

      That is insane. Fires in regular skyscrapers are bad enough. How well would a wooden twin towers of held up? Would it have just toppled over in the first couple minutes? How many more lives would have been lost in a tragedy such as that? Perhaps, I just don't understand the special voodoo of making wood unburnable.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday December 04 2019, @09:33AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 04 2019, @09:33AM (#928034) Journal

        Fires in regular skyscrapers are bad enough.

        Oh, wow. I reckon nobody but you thought of it.

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @01:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @01:17PM (#927091)

    We don't want bacteria to start consuming CO2. We have plants for that. We want bacteria to consume and destroy the harmful chemicals being pumped into the environment by the khazar jewish rats and their minions. Flouride, lead, asbestos, aluminium/aluminum especially stand out as targets for removal.

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