Living at the Boiling Point

What we can learn from extreme heat-loving microbes?

Thanks to the decreasing costs of sequencing genomic DNA, finding novel microorganisms that add to our understanding of metabolism in myriad environments is becoming common place. Not only are we learning about the diversity of life in extreme environments, like heat, cold, pressure, and altitude, but we are also learning what life on other planets may be like. With each additional genome added into ‘the cloud’, our synthetic biology toolbox gets a little bit bigger and our ability to manipulate tiny organisms to produce novel compounds is possible. Enter the “rushing fireball”.

Pyrococcus furiosus is an archeal species that thrives near deep-sea thermal vents where temperatures are between 90 and 100 degrees Celsius (or 194 to 212 degrees F). P. furiosus can grow at temperatures as low as 70 degrees C (158 deg F). To live in such conditions, this organism’s proteins must be tolerant to what we would consider harsh conditions. This organism’s ambient conditions makes wild-type proteins well-suited for industrial processes where temperatures are near boiling.

So far, P. furiosus has been utilized to produce 3-hydroxypropionic acid, a common industrial chemical used to make various products including acrylics. The kicker is that these cells were wired to make this chemical from atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is not crazy to think of what other useful products can be produced by P. furiosus with small modifications within the genome; products like ethanol or butanol as biofuels.