One fascinating example is the process by which certain bacteria, such as Cupriavidus metallidurans, can metabolize toxic heavy metals like gold. These bacteria can absorb and reduce dissolved gold into solid gold nanoparticles, essentially "pooping" out tiny nuggets of gold.These bacterial processes are being explored for their potential to assist in the extraction and environmental remediation of metals, as well as for their application in nanotechnology.
No other creation built on our cosmos has organized condition as possibly as microscopic cells of the bacteria. Amongst their function assumed in existence on earth, it turns out some of these microorganism are also expert as contaminating valuable metals.
An international team of researchers has demonstrated out how one metal-gobbling bacterium, Cupriavidus metallidurans, undertaking to ingest poisonous metallic compounds and still flourish, producing ting gold nuggets as a side-effect.
Just like other elements, gold can move through what’s known as a biogeochemical cycle-being dissolved, shifted around and disputedly reconcentrated in earth’s sediment.
Microorganisms are involved in each & every step of the procedure, which lead scientists to admire how they don’t get toxic by the highly toxic compounds that gold ions usually help in soil formation.
The rod-shaped C. metallidurans was first discovered to poop gold nuggets back in 2009, when scientists found that it somehow manages to manipulate poisonous gold substances and convert them into the element’s metallic form without any clear visible danger to the individual itself.
Now, after 5 years of experiments, Reith & his colleagues finally know the accurate mechanism of how the bacterium scored this amazing skill.
C. metallidurans prosper in soils which contain both hydrogen (H) and a range of highly toxic heavy metals. This means that bacterium doesn’t have much contest form other individuals that can be toxic in such an atmosphere.
"If an organism prefers to endure here, it has to find a way to protect itself from these noxious substances," says co-author of the latest study, microbiologist Dietrich H. Nies from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany.
As it turns out, the bacterium has a pretty intensive protective pathway, which not only involves gold, but also copper.
Substances containing both of these substances can quick get into C. metallidurans cells. Once side they commerce in such a way that copper ions & gold complexes get transformed deep inside the bacterium, where they could potency cause destruction.
To deal with these problem, bacterium pay enzymes to change their position the illegal act metals out of their cells- for copper there is an enzyme called CupA. But the presence of intimate gold causes a new enigma.
"When gold compounds are also present, the enzyme is forcibly and the toxic copper and gold compounds reside inside the cell," says Nies.
At this point other bacteria might just give up and go live somewhere less poisonous but not C. metallidurans. This individual has another enzyme up it sleeve, which scientist have named as CopA.
With the presence of this molecule, the bacterium can convert the copper & gold compounds into those forms that are less soaked by cell.
“This dispel that some copper & gold compounds that enter the cellular interior,” explain Nies.
The bacterium is less poisoned and the enzyme that forced out the copper can incline of the less copper not obstructed.
But not only does this procedure let microbe shed all the unwanted copper, but it also results in teeny small gold nugget nanoparticles on the bacterial surface.
The results of this research, which make the building of the previous past work by the same team, are extremely interesting into a working of unknown microorganisms. But on before to that, the bacterium’s odd talent could be put for good use.
Knowing how C. metallidurans can poop out gold nuggets means scientists just got a bigger step closer to opening the biogeochemical cycle of gold.
In the future these amazements could be used to refine the pure metal form ores that only small amounts of metal-something that is currently a tough prospect.
