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PremiumVIVAnews -you are very dependence on caffeine? It turns out you have nothing than Pseudomonas putida CBB5, a new bacteria discovered. These bacteria live off caffeine and now researchers managed to figure out how they could do that.
"As known, caffeine is a mix between carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Bacteria using a special enzyme which is capable of solving the caffeine to carbon dioxide and ammonia, "said Ryan Summers, researchers from the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering University of Iowa, as quoted from Scientific American, may 25, 2011.
Summers and his colleagues found bacteria caffeine in a flower garden on their campuses in the University of Iowa. Although the location of the discovery is not a location that is common to find new species, but these findings are not surprising.
"There are very many caffeine in the region and it is not surprising if there were bacteria that can take caffeine molecule for growth and reproduction," said Summers.
The findings were presented at the General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans was the first one, which shows how enzymes and genes used by bacteria that can live with caffeine. "Has never been found before that there is a species of microbes that consume caffeine," he said.
After isolating the genes that are able to metabolize caffeine, researchers then put it into a series of e. coli that would produce an enzyme able to metabolize caffeine (N-demethylase named NdmA and NdmB).
Summers and colleagues noted that the enzyme likely could be useful to develop new treatment methods for asthma or increase circulation.
"Enzymes produced by the bacteria could also be used to help overcome the effects of caffeine overload caused by the industries producing tea and coffee decaffeinated," said Summers. (umi)
Found, the bacteria that live in Caffeine
