An essential chemical for life on Earth is carbon dioxide. CO 2 is required by trees for photosynthesis, crops yield more when it is present, and some bacteria can convert it to food. The chemical even plays a crucial role in maintaining human health by encouraging us to take deep breaths of oxygen.
However, excessive CO2 can have a terrible impact on ecosystems and accelerate climate change. That is why researchers are interested in finding a balance.
Researchers from Simon Fraser University are examining how organisms perceive and react to CO 2 with the use of the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan.
Their work might boost environmental and human health and suggest fresh approaches to carbon capture.
Because CO2 is such a vital gas, it is crucial for organisms to be able to detect local quantities and react, according to Dr. Dustin King, a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. David Vocadlos’ lab at the university’s Department of Chemistry.
King and colleagues explored the crucial function CO 2 performs in cyanobacteria, a photosynthetic organism found in water, in an paper that was published in Nature Chemical Biology.
Carbon is used by cyanobacteria to produce vital nutrients that support their life cycle.
According to King, they can directly fix it after removing it from the atmosphere and add it to basic organic molecules. We may be able to improve CO 2 collection devices by having a better understanding of how cyanobacteria control CO 2 fixation.
King thinks that by combining industrial operations and the mechanism found in these species, we may be able to lower CO2 emissions.
The team was able to examine intricate chemical structures and learn how CO 2 interacts to a bacterial protein using the CLSs CMCF beamline .
We need highly detailed molecular structures, so we couldn’t do it without the CLS, according to King. It has been amazing to see how these beamlines at the CLS have developed. Now, we can gather data sets in only a few minutes, which is amazing.
Sha Zhu, David J. Vocadlo, Jess E. Serrano-Negrn, Zarina Madden, Darryl B. Hardie, and Dustin T. King. Identification of CO2-dependent lysine carboxylation in proteins by chemoproteomic analysis. 2022, Nature Chemical Biology, 110, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-022-01043-1 .
Thanks to Canadian Light Source .
Cyanobacteria: Research Team Advances Biological Alternative To Producing Common Petrochemical is the source of the related article and the featured image.
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