Bacteria with a Metal Diet Discovered in Dirty Glassware
Phoenix666 writes:
Bacteria with Metal Diet Discovered in Dirty Glassware :
Caltech microbiologists have discovered bacteria that feed on manganese and use the metal as their source of calories. Such microbes were predicted to exist over a century ago, but none had been found or described until now.
"These are the first bacteria found to use manganese as their source of fuel," says Jared Leadbetter, professor of environmental microbiology at Caltech who, in collaboration with postdoctoral scholar Hang Yu, describes the findings in the July 16 issue of the journal Nature. "A wonderful aspect of microbes in nature is that they can metabolize seemingly unlikely materials, like metals, yielding energy useful to the cell."
The study also reveals that the bacteria can use manganese to convert carbon dioxide into biomass, a process called chemosynthesis. Previously, researchers knew of bacteria and fungi that could oxidize manganese, or strip it of electrons, but they had only speculated that yet-to-be-identified microbes might be able to harness the process to drive growth.
Leadbetter found the bacteria serendipitously after performing unrelated experiments using a light, chalk-like form of manganese. He had left a glass jar soiled with the substance to soak in tap water in his Caltech office sink before departing for several months to work off campus. When he returned, the jar was coated with a dark material.
[...] The black coating was in fact oxidized manganese generated by newfound bacteria that had likely come from the tap water itself. "There is evidence that relatives of these creatures reside in groundwater, and a portion of Pasadena's drinking water is pumped from local aquifers," he says.
Journal Reference:
Hang Yu, Jared R. Leadbetter. Bacterial chemolithoautotrophy via manganese oxidation, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2468-5)
The only thing left is to submerge the glassware in "a fresh cup of really hot tea... and turn it on!"
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