Weizmann Institute develops CO2-consuming bacteria

Very beneficial for humanity that Jews/Israelis believe in only one God and it is not climate change! Jews believe in "Do not worship idols (e.g. climate change)!". Christians believe in the Apocalypse, Jews in the coming of the Messiah! Which one do you prefer?

This research most likely has also implications for artificial photosynthesis!

"Scientists at the Weizmann Institute have developed bacteria nourished only from carbon dioxide. The bacteria build their entire biomass from carbon in the air. ... The bacteria ... were weaned completely from sugar, and now subsist entirely on a diet of CO2, which they obtain from their surroundings, so that they live off the air and build their entire mass from carbon in the atmosphere. ... The researchers ... decided to try applying the no-sugar challenge to E. coli bacteria. First, they mapped the genes essential to the process of fixating carbon and attached several of them to the genome of the bacteria in their laboratory. In addition, in order to replace the role of solar energy in photosynthesis, they inserted a gene into the bacteria that enabled them to derive energy from an available material called formate. The scientists sequenced the genome of the bacteria weaned from sugar in order to identify the mutations that changed their nutritional habits. Unexpectedly, they found relatively few genetic changes - a few changes involving synchronization of the carbon fixation process, a few changes involving transcription - regulating how existing genes are turned on and off, and several more changes whose role was unclear"

"So, Ron Milo, a synthetic biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and his colleagues decided to see whether they could transform E. coli [heterotroph] into an autotroph. ... hey inserted the gene for an enzyme that enabled the microbe to eat formate, one of the simplest carbon-containing compounds, and one other strains of E. coli can’t eat. The microbes could then transform the formate into ATP, an energy-rich molecule that cells can use. That diet gave the microbe the energy it needed to use the second batch of three new enzymes it received—all of which enabled it to convert CO2 into sugars and other organic molecules. The researchers also deleted several enzymes the bacterium normally uses for metabolism, forcing it to depend on the new diet to grow."

Weizmann Institute develops CO2-consuming bacteria - Globes: The bacteria could help reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

This microbe no longer needs to eat food to grow, thanks to a bit of genetic engineering