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Scientists have found a microbe that lives on caffeine.
Many people say they can't live without caffeine, but few of us would actually perish in the absence of our morning coffee ritual. For the bacterium Pseudomonas putida CBB5 that isn't the case. It really does live on caffeine, according to new research presented today.
The caffeine-munching bacterium was found in a flower bed on the University of Iowa campus.
Ryan Summers, a doctoral student there, identified four digestive proteins that it uses to break down caffeine, which allows it to live and grow, he explains in a summary of his research presented at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans.
"This work, for the first time, demonstrates the enzymes and genes utilized by bacteria to live on caffeine," he writes.
Caffeine is composed of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen. The bacteria break caffeine down into carbon dioxide and ammonia. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen.
Further testing showed that the compounds formed during the breakdown of caffeine are natural building blocks for drugs used to treat asthma, improve blood flow and stabilize heart arrhythmias. Since these drugs are difficult to synthesize chemically, Summers and colleagues think their bacteria could ease production of these drugs and lower their costs.
What's more, the bacteria could be employed to clean up after us human caffeine junkies, Summers notes in the research summary.
"The caffeine digestive proteins could also be used to remove caffeine and related compounds from large quantities of waste generated from coffee and tea processing industries, which pollute the environment. The decaffeinated waste from these industries can be used as animal feed and for production of transportation fuel."
More on caffeine and microbes:
- Dipsticks could check caffeine in your cup
- Caffeine and painkillers found in fish
- Caffeine gives boys a bigger buzz, study says
- Bacteria turned into biofuel factories
John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
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This is really neat work. There is so much we can learn from bacteria. There is much we 'should' learn as we have billions of bateria and trillions of their dna on us and in us and, basically, without the little guys we wouldn't survive.
It only makes sense that the key to many of our problems are squirming around in our ancient little ancestors-bacteria.
This is not news. Caffeine and its relatives are naturally occurring compounds. Organisms that can metabolize them have been around for as long as they have existed. Heck, even my liver can.
@Chandradust - There is very good evidence that our cells are actually teams of bacteria. Our mitochondria, (and plants' chloroplasts), even have their own 'bacterial' DNA.
Very cool-Yes, I have read that. I have read that Mitochondria might be a mutated bacteria, I believe the article said.
I have also read recently that bacteria may actually influence behavior in certain organisms. They did a study with mice and apparently without the bacteria (after they were given antibiotics) the mice were more wreckless and made 'poor decisions' (to paraphrase the article).
The bacteria with bacteria's behavior did not change during the exercises of the test.
I saw the article on physorg.com (science site).
I'm sure they are already working on analyzing bacteria in the stomachs of people with certain mental health disorders (with lots of behavioral and even cognitive problems). Wouldn't that be awesome if they could improve unwanted symptoms with bacteria!? Better than some of the damaging psychotropic medication out there, I bet.
Good stuff.
Bacterial toxins often impair people. On the other hand, we all depend on our 'normal flora' to exist, not just in our large intestine, but our stomach, mouth and even our skin.
We also have larger organisms that live in/on us. You might want to read "the Life That Lives on Man" by Michale L. A. Andrews.
I will do that Darthdon (*writes it down*!). Thank you, thank you, thank you!
We humans often say we are born alone and we die alone but really that's kind of not true. Our bacteria buddies are with us from start to finish--I know I'm preaching to the choir though! haha
That's Michael L.A. Andrews, not Michale. (I'm such a good typist I only need to use 2 fingers!). Sorry.
Don't even worry about it. When I wrote one of the posts above what I meant to write was that "the mice with bacteria exhibited behavior that did not change..." (you will notice my obvious mistake when you re-read it) but by the time I realized it it was too late to edit it. haha
I have no excuses because I am a five fingered typists! Incidentally, I'm quite surprised out how fast you 2 fingered typists type. lol
I don't know. I have seen many people who probably would die without caffeine. Still, this is proof that somewhere, out there, there is a critter for everything. As long as we don't extinct it before we need it.
A microbe that lives on caffeine? I think they just discovered my old boss!