Marine bacteria can create environmentally friendly energy source

Bacteria in the world’s oceans can efficiently exploit solar energy to grow, thanks to a unique light-capturing pigment.

This discovery was made by researchers at University of Kalmar in Sweden, in collaboration with researchers in Gothenburg, Sweden, and Spain. The findings are described in an article in the prestigious academic journal Nature.
In 2000 scientists in the U.S. found for the first time that many marine bacteria have a gene in their DNA that codes for a new type of light-capturing pigment: proteorhodopsin. Proteorhodopsin is related to the pigment in the retina that enables humans to see colors. It should be possible for this pigment to enable marine bacteria to capture solar light to generate energy, but until now it had not been possible to confirm this hypothesis.

Last year researchers from Kalmar collected 20 marine bacteria from different ocean areas and mapped their genomes. Several of them proved to contain the pigment proteorhodopsin. This made it possible to run a series of experiments that clearly show that growth in bacteria with this pigment is stimulated by sunlight, because the pigment converts solar energy to energy for growth. In other words, the scientists had found a new type of bacterial photosynthesis that takes place in the seas.

Innovations Report