Posts Tagged ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Science’
Marine Bacteria Absorb Carbon Dioxide
Written by WTJ on June 11, 2008 – 11:09 am -
Kalmar University researchers discovered that ocean bacteria are capable of taking up carbon dioxide with the help of sunlight. Jaron Pinhassi and Laura Gómez-Consarnau in Sweden worked with colleagues in Spain, Australia, and Russia found that a unique light-capturing pigment, proteorhodopsin, use sunlight as energy source and capture carbon dioxide. Proteorhodopsin was first discovered in 2000 (Beja et al., 2000). Proteorhodopsin can be found in nearly half of the sea bacteria. This finding showed that marine bacteria are important in climate changing. The entire article will be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) this week.
This discovery reminds me of photosynthesis, which use carbon dioxide, and water, with the help of sunlight as energy source. Photosynthesis in plants is carried out by chloroplasts. The end products are oxygen and carbohydrates.
Reference:
Beja O, Aravind L, Koonin EV, Suzuki MT, Hadd A, Nguyen LP, Jovanovich SB, Gates CM, Feldman RA, Spudich JL, Spudich EN, DeLong EF (2000). “Bacterial rhodopsin: Evidence for a new type of phototrophy in the sea”. Science 289: 1902-1904.
Tags: carbon dioxide, Jaron Pinhassi, Kalmar University, Laura Gómez-Consarnau, PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, proteorhodopsin
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