{"id":170267,"date":"2024-11-07T20:18:09","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T20:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/07\/meet-chonkus-the-mutant-cyanobacteria-that-could-help-sink-climate-change\/"},"modified":"2024-11-07T20:18:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T20:18:09","slug":"meet-chonkus-the-mutant-cyanobacteria-that-could-help-sink-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/11\/07\/meet-chonkus-the-mutant-cyanobacteria-that-could-help-sink-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Chonkus, the mutant cyanobacteria that could help sink\u00a0climate\u00a0change"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stand back, ordinary ocean-dwelling, oxygen-spewing organisms: There\u2019s a new green, hulkish mutant in town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And hefty UTEX 3222 \u2014 dubbed \u201cChonkus\u201d by the researchers who found it \u2014 may have just the right combination of traits<\/a> to help with some of humanity\u2019s most pressing problems. In particular, Chonkus could help fight climate change, report microbiologist Max Schubert, formerly of the Wyss Institute at Harvard and now launching a start-up, and colleagues in a study published October 29 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Chonkus (right) settles quickly to the bottom of a water-filled test tube, compared with another strain of cyanobacteria (left). That quick accumulation of green sludge could make it more useful for sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide.<\/span>Ted Chavkin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Chonkus was discovered in the shallow sunlit waters off the coast of Italy\u2019s Vulcano Island, where volcanic gas-rich groundwater seeps into the sea. It\u2019s an environment that Schubert and colleagues suspected to be fertile ground for finding photosynthesizing, carbon-consuming microbes. The waters collected from those seeps turned out to contain a spontaneous mutant strain of Synechococcus elongatus<\/em>, a species of photosynthesizing bacteria<\/a> that\u2019s at the base of ocean food webs<\/a> around the world (SN: 10\/20\/16; SN: 6\/9\/16<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S. elongatus<\/em> is a favorite lab organism<\/a>, because of how quickly it grows and how resistant it is to environmental stressors (SN: 6\/14\/17<\/em>). And Chonkus, the new mutant, is like a superpowered version, the team found. When they cultured the strain in the laboratory, its individual cells were larger than those of other fast-growing cyanobacteria, and it built larger colonies. The mutant also contained more carbon than other strains of S. elongatus<\/em>, apparently stored in white granules within its cells. The strain was also heavy: When placed into a test tube, the cyanobacteria rapidly sank to the bottom, forming a dense sludge.<\/p>\n\n\n