Biologists discover bacterial defence mechanism against aggressive oxygen
Bacteria possess an ingenious mechanism for preventing oxygen from harming the building blocks of the cell. This is the new finding of a team of biologists that includes Joris Messens of VIB, a life sciences research institute in Flanders, Belgium, connected to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The scientists made this discovery by modifying the DNA of the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli. By means of this model organism, they have uncovered the existence of a mechanism that repairs proteins in the cell that have been damaged by oxygen. There are indications that a similar repair system is active in human cells. The research results are being published in the eminent scientific journal Science. At the same time, the researchers are posting an animation online that illustrates the finding...