Under pressure: How a deep-sea protein adapts to an extreme environment
Life in the deep sea is under immense pressure—literally. Such extreme conditions can disrupt the delicate structures of proteins essential to life. Yet somehow, the proteins in deep-sea creatures remain functional. This raises an intriguing question: how?
Scientists have discovered how a deep-sea protein adapts to extreme pressure, allowing it to remain functional in harsh conditions. Deep-sea environments exert immense pressure that can disrupt the structures of proteins essential for life. Professor Gaku Fukuhara of Kyushu University's Institute for Materials Chemistry and Engineering led a research team that investigated how a deep-sea protein remains stable under these extreme conditions.
They found that as pressure increases, the protein forms trimeric structures, which stabilize itself through a process called oligomerization-mediated structural stabilization. The study, published in Scientific Reports, compared microbial rhodopsins from deep-sea and terrestrial bacteria. While terrestrial rhodopsins denatured under pressure, deep-sea rhodopsins maintained their structure and normal light-absorption properties.
The deep-sea protein's resilience was attributed to its ability to form trimeric structures under high pressure. This discovery could lead to the development of light-responsive protein materials for use in harsh conditions and provide insights into how organisms adapt to extreme environments, potentially impacting medical research in areas like cancer treatment.
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