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Arsenic-eating microbe may redefine chemistry of life

Nature (2010)Cite this article

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Oddball bacterium can survive without one of biology's essential building blocks.

A bacterium found in the arsenic-filled waters of a Californian lake is poised to overturn scientists' understanding of the biochemistry of living organisms. The microbe seems to be able to replace phosphorus with arsenic in some of its basic cellular processes — suggesting the possibility of a biochemistry very different from the one we know, which could be used by organisms in past or present extreme environments on Earth, or even on other planets.

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References

  1. Wolfe-Simon, F. et al. Science doi:10.1126/science.1197258 (2010).

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  1. Alla Katsnelson
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David Valentine

Felisa Wolfe-Simon

Barry Rosen

Mary Voytek

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Katsnelson, A. Arsenic-eating microbe may redefine chemistry of life. Nature (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2010.645

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/news.2010.645

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