Sauer, like Kerfeld, is a corresponding author on the new piece. The study sheds light on how evolution devised methods for bacteria to convert carbon dioxide and light into oxygen and sugar long before plants existed on our planet. Until recently, the whole light-harvesting structure of a cyanobacteria's antenna has been missing, according to Sauer. "This study represents a milestone in the science of photosynthesis," said Paul Sauer, a postdoctoral researcher at Berkeley Group and UC Berkeley in Professor Eva Nogales' cryogenic electron microscopy lab. Researchers had previously been unable to obtain high-resolution photographs of undamaged antennas, which are required to understand how they capture and transfer light energy. This is a significant benefit, according to Markus Sutter, a senior research associate at MSU and Berkeley Lab in California.įor decades, scientists have worked to visualize the many building parts of phycobilisomes to better understand how they function.īecause phycobilisomes are fragile, this piecemeal method is required. When you understand how something works, you can better change and manipulate it. With a design like the one offered in this paper, you may begin thinking about tweaking and enhancing photosynthesis's light-harvesting component. In the future, the findings could aid researchers in the remediation of harmful bacteria in the environment, the development of artificial photosynthetic systems for renewable energy, and the inclusion of microbes in sustainable manufacturing that begins with carbon dioxide and sunlight as raw materials.Īccording to Cheryl Kerfeld, Hannah Distinguished Professor of structural bioengineering in the College of Natural Science, there is a lot of interest in using cyanobacteria as solar-powered factories that capture sunlight and convert it into a type of energy that can be used to make important products. The results, which were published on August 31 in the journal Nature, instantly shed fresh light on microbial photosynthesis, especially how light energy is absorbed and sent to where it is needed to power the conversion of carbon dioxide into sugars. They are present in cyanobacteria, which are the evolutionary successors of the earliest creatures on Earth capable of converting sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into sugars and oxygen. Nature has created these structures to capture the sun's energy through photosynthesis, yet they do not belong to plants, as per ScienceDaily.
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