Transcript BIOCHEMICAL ASPECTS OF BIODIVERSITY

Prokaryotes in Research and Technology
The usefulness of prokaryotes largely derives from their
diverse forms of nutrition and metabolism.
All this metabolic versatility evolved prior to the appearance
of the structural characteristics in the evolution of eukaryotic
organisms.
Bacteria thrive on a chemistry of a substrate and convert to
a new chemistry while harvesting energy from it. The
biochemistry of these phenomena are the important steps for
biochemists while bacteria etc work as a vector.
On this understanding it is possible to benefits from the
metabolic capabilities of both bacteria and archaea.
Humans have long used bacteria to convert milk into
cheese.
Anaerobic bacteria and archaea decompose the organic
matter in sewage, converting it to material that can be used as
landfill or fertilizer after chemical sterilization.
Prokaryotes are the principal agents in bioremediation, the
use of organisms to remove pollutants from soil, air, or water.
Other bioremediation applications include cleaning up oil
spills and precipitating radioactive material (such as
uranium) out of groundwater.
Bacteria may come out prominently in a major
industry of plastics.
Globally, each year a bout 350 billion pounds of plastic are
produced from petroleum and used to make toys, storage
containers, soft drink bottles, and many other items. These
products degrade slowly, creating environmental problems.
Bacteria can now be used to make natural plastics. For
example, some bacteria synthesize a type of polyester known
as PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoate), which they use to store
chemical energy.
When these bacteria are fed sugars derived from corn, the
PHA they produce can be extracted, formed into pellets, and
used to make durable, biodegradable plastics.
Through genetic engineering, humans can now modify
bacteria to produce vitamins, antibiotics, hormones, and
other products.
Researchers are seeking to reduce fossil fuel use by
engineering bacteria that can produce ethanol from various
forms of biomass, including agricultural waste, switch grass,
fast-growing woody plants such as willows, and corn.
The most radical idea for modifying bacteria and obtaining
the desired chemistry.
The most radical idea now has come up for
modifying bacteria through recombinant technology
and obtaining the desired chemistry.
The latest success is in preparing synthetic bacteria
thus to incorporate the desired characteristics to
obtain the wanted chemistry