Industry and agriculture produce a large amount of methane, a greenhouse gas, working on global warming.
Many bacteria also release methane in the process of metabolism. Part of it (or rather, 4% of what enters the atmosphere) is produced in the ocean, and it is puzzling scientists because it was not aware of any creatures that would stand methane and lived close to the sea surface.
A few years ago was discovered microbial enzymes that produce methylphosphonate, a substance which can be methane after separation of the phosphate. These enzymes are in Nitrosopumilus maritimus microbes that inhabit the ocean surface, but their presence in other more common germs, nothing was known.
Long time team Wilfred van der Donk was looking for this enzyme in other species of marine microbes, but only found a related enzyme HEPD, which is similar to methylphosphonate, but cannot be a source of methane. However, using x-ray crystallography in an oxygen-free chamber, they found the missing link — the amino acid glutamine, which, as a result of certain chemical reactions, causes MPnS, HEPD becomes, the genetic sequence of the desired enzyme.
Checking the genetic database, the scientists found thousands of germs with the same structural configuration as that of the enzyme MPnS, and one of them is the germ Pelagibacter ubique lived in huge quantities at the surface of the ocean.
“The stunning results based on the previous studies show that the metabolism methylphosphonate can lead to the formation of methane in an oxygen rich ocean. Since methane is a powerful greenhouse gas obscure origin, which is in the waters near the ocean surface, the result will be a more complete understanding of methylphosphonates cycle in nature,” says David Karl, Professor of Oceanography of the University of Hawaii.
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