Increasing evidence has sprung up that important key players in the methane cycle have been overlooked.
Methane is not only a powerful greenhouse gas, but also a source of energy. Microorganisms therefore use it for their metabolism. They do so much more frequently and in more ways than was previously assumed, as revealed by a study now published in Nature Microbiology by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and Jiao Tong University in Shanghai.
Methane is a very special molecule. It is the main component of natural gas and we heat our apartments with it, but when reaching the atmosphere it is a potent greenhouse gas. It is also central in microbiology: In the absence of oxygen, a special group of microorganisms, the so-called methanogenic archaea, can produce methane. Other microorganisms archaea living in symbiosis with bacteria can use methane as a food source.
Regardless of whether methane is produced or consumed, the same enzyme is the key: methyl coenzyme Mreductase (MCR). This enzyme produces methane, but it can also be used to break up this gas. This enzyme produces methane and can break this gas up again. For a long time, scientists believed that only a few species of microbes could convert methane in one way or another. Recently, however, increasing evidence has sprung up that important key players in the methane cycle have been overlooked.
Continue reading at Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Image via Prof. Wenjun Li
