"Count the mentions of the word “machines” in this news from the University of Liverpool:
“Nanotechnology reveals hidden depths of bacterial ‘machines’…”
“New research from the University of Liverpool, published in the journal Nanoscale, has probed the structure and material properties of protein machines in bacteria, which have the capacity to convert carbon dioxide into sugar through photosynthesis.”
“Unique internal ‘machines’ in cyanobacteria, called carboxysomes, allow the organisms to convert carbon dioxide to sugar and provide impacts on global biomass production and our environment.”
“So far, little is known about how these ‘machines’ are constructed and maintain their organization to perform carbon fixation activity.”
“They then used electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy to visualize the morphology and internal protein organization of these bacterial machines.”
“‘We’re now just starting to understand how these bacterial machines are built and work in nature. Our long-term vision is to harness the knowledge to make further steps towards better design and engineering of bio-inspired machines,’ added Dr Liu. ‘The knowledge and techniques can be extended to other biological machines.’”
That’s a lot of machine language for one short article! And it doesn’t even include related words like mechanical, nanotechnology, and structure.
“New research from the University of Liverpool, published in the journal Nanoscale, has probed the structure and material properties of protein machines in bacteria, which have the capacity to convert carbon dioxide into sugar through photosynthesis.”
“Unique internal ‘machines’ in cyanobacteria, called carboxysomes, allow the organisms to convert carbon dioxide to sugar and provide impacts on global biomass production and our environment.”
“They then used electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy to visualize the morphology and internal protein organization of these bacterial machines.”
“‘We’re now just starting to understand how these bacterial machines are built and work in nature. Our long-term vision is to harness the knowledge to make further steps towards better design and engineering of bio-inspired machines,’ added Dr Liu. ‘The knowledge and techniques can be extended to other biological machines.’”
That’s a lot of machine language for one short article! And it doesn’t even include related words like mechanical, nanotechnology, and structure.
They’re talking about an amazing little organelle in cyanobacteria (once considered among the most primitive of cells) called the carboxysome — one of those tiny wonders most people don’t know about but depend on for life.
As the article states, the machines in carboxysomes “provide impacts on global biomass production and our environment” by using sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into sugar, releasing oxygen for us to breathe.
Carboxysomes are polyhedral structures resembling a viral capsid, except that these living machine factories are “much softer and structurally flexible, which is correlated to their formation dynamics and regulation in bacteria.”
As the article states, the machines in carboxysomes “provide impacts on global biomass production and our environment” by using sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into sugar, releasing oxygen for us to breathe.
Carboxysomes are polyhedral structures resembling a viral capsid, except that these living machine factories are “much softer and structurally flexible, which is correlated to their formation dynamics and regulation in bacteria.”
*Zooming in, we find higher levels of organization.
The protein shell serves as a physical barrier to protect enzymes from the cytosol and a selectively permeable membrane to mediate transport of enzyme substrates and products.
There’s more. The team found three structural domains inside, “a single-layered icosahedral shell, an inner layer and paracrystalline arrays of interior Rubisco.”
The protein shell serves as a physical barrier to protect enzymes from the cytosol and a selectively permeable membrane to mediate transport of enzyme substrates and products.
There’s more. The team found three structural domains inside, “a single-layered icosahedral shell, an inner layer and paracrystalline arrays of interior Rubisco.”
Rubisco? Is that some kind of cracker? No — it’s another one of the most important things in nature you may have never heard of, and here it is, laid out in nice orderly rows in a geometric nanofactory.
Short for “Ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase”, Rubisco is the most abundant protein on earth.
Short for “Ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase”, Rubisco is the most abundant protein on earth.
According to PNAS, this machine solves an “abominably perplexing puzzle” of distinguishing between “featureless” molecules of carbon dioxide and oxygen, and it “may be nearly perfectly optimized” to do so."
CEH
CEH
