Bacteria could help to capture greenhouse gases

Carbon dioxide is an important molecule necessary for life on Earth. Trees have CO. required2 for photosynthesis, crops produce higher yields in its presence, and some bacteria can convert it into food. In fact, the molecule is an important part of human health and drives us to inhale large amounts of oxygen.

However, too much CO2 can have disastrous consequences for ecosystems and contribute to climate change. That’s why scientists want to know how to find a balance.

With the help of the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, researchers at Simon Fraser University examine how organisms perceive and respond to CO2.

Their research can help improve human and environmental health and lead to new strategies for carbon capture.

“It is very important that organisms can detect local CO.2 concentrations and reacts because it’s such an essential gas,” said Dr. Dustin King, a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. David Vocadlo’s lab in the university’s Department of Chemistry.

In a paper published in Nature Chemical BiologyKing and colleagues investigated the important role of CO2 plays in cyanobacteria – photosynthetic organisms found in water.

Cyanobacteria use carbon to create essential nutrients that support their life cycle.

“They are able to take it out of the atmosphere, repair it directly and add it to simple organic molecules,” King said. “Understanding how cyanobacteria regulate CO.2 fixation may provide us with an opportunity to extract enhanced CO. to develop2 recording technologies.”

King believes that we can use the system within these organisms, along with industrial processes, to reduce CO emissions2 emissions.

Using the CLS’s CMCF beamline, the team was able to see detailed molecular structures and study how CO2 binds to a bacterial protein.

“It would be impossible to do without the CLS because we need detailed, high-resolution molecular structures,” King said. “It’s been just amazing to see how these beamlines have evolved at the CLS. Now we’re collecting data sets in a matter of half a minute or so, it’s pretty incredible.”