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Home toxic home

Michigan State University


IMAGE: Most organisms would die in the volcanic sulfur pools of Yellowstone. Robust simple algae call it home, and their secrets to survival could advance human medicine and bioremediation. view more

Credit: G.L. Kohuth

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Most organisms would die in the volcanic sulfur pools of Yellowstone and Mount Etna. Robust simple algae call it home, and their secrets to survival could advance human medicine and bioremediation.


Their study, published in the current issue of Science, shows that the algae's ability to adapt to a hot and extremely acidic environment ¬lies in part in their membrane proteins.

"The algae's membrane proteins are biologically quite interesting because they're receptors and transporters, the same classes of proteins that play key roles in energy metabolism and human immune response," said Garavito. "This has applications in human medicine because virtually all of the important pathways that contribute to disease treatment involve membrane proteins."



"Weber knew that this would be a good organism from which to harvest a wide variety of genes that could be potential models for those involved in human health and disease," said Dave Dewitt, associate dean of research at MSU's College of Natural Science. "From a biotechnology standpoint, this organism is the Wal-Mart of genomes; if it doesn't have what you're looking for, you probably don't need it."

Furthering the superstore metaphor, the research team also is spending time in the Wal-Mart genome's bioremediation aisle. In this capacity, scientists are quite interested in how the organisms manage toxic chemicals and heavy metal contamination. That's because these algae are found not only near geysers, but they also populate polluted slag pools and mines.

"This organism knows how to deal with leaching loads of heavy metals in a noxious environment," Garavito said. "This research could lead to enzymes that are needed to clean up mine and heavy-metal contamination."



The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.


