Issue 160 / May 2014

an unusual chemistry

.What is new to us is not necessarily new to Nature. There are things that have been around for years, even millions of years, which have remained hidden to scientists because they lacked the knowledge to unveil them. The methane you find in oceans - a portion of which ends up in the atmosphere - is one of Nature's riddles. The methane content of the ocean is substantial and, according to researchers, cannot have only been synthesized by the anaerobic archaea who live in its depths. Especially since deep-ocean methane can take a long time to percolate from its original source to the shallower parts of the sea. So what else could be making methane in these waters? Well recently, biologists discovered that a marine microbe living closer to the surface of the ocean, and known as Nitrosopumilus maritimus, feeds on a very unusual chemical compound - HEP - and, in the process, releases methane. And, since the ocean is bulging with these microbes, this could very well account for a lot of the methane that is found in it. Shortly after this revelation, scientists discovered the enzyme that converts this particular compound, which they baptised methylphosphonate synthase.

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