Blue-green algae skip a sugar shortcut scientists thought they used
García-Fernández JM
Cyanobacteria
The blue-green film that shows up on your pond, rain barrel, or aquarium glass runs on a simpler internal fuel system than researchers believed, which matters for anyone tracking algae blooms or water quality.
Cyanobacteria, often called blue-green algae, are some of the oldest photosynthetic organisms on Earth and show up in ponds, aquariums, and damp soil. Researchers checked how one common species processes glucose for energy and found it skips a pathway that many other bacteria use, a route scientists had long assumed cyanobacteria relied on too. That means the standard picture of how these microbes convert sugar into usable energy needs an update.
Key Findings
Synechocystis, a widely studied cyanobacterium, lacks the Entner-Doudoroff pathway for breaking down glucose.
This contradicts prior assumptions that cyanobacteria used this pathway as a standard glucose metabolism route.
The correction affects how scientists model cyanobacterial metabolism for research and biotechnology applications.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists found that a common type of blue-green algae doesn't use a sugar-processing shortcut that researchers had assumed it relied on for decades. The discovery corrects the textbook picture of how these ancient photosynthetic microbes fuel themselves.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
An updated view of glucose pathways in cyanobacteria.
Contrary to previous belief, the cyanobacterium Synechocystis lacks the Entner-Doudoroff pathway for glucose metabolism.
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Species Mentioned
Was this useful?
Want to tell us more? (optional)
Thanks for the note!
Something went wrong — please try again.
Too many submissions. Try again in an hour.
Evaluation of Pontederia crassipes as bioindicator of heavy metals in Lake Ma...
Water hyacinth — that fast-spreading plant choking up lakes and waterways worldwide — could be deliberately deployed to flag and lock down heavy metal contam...
Cyanobacteria are a group of autotrophic gram-negative bacteria of the phylum Cyanobacteriota that can obtain biological energy via oxygenic photosynthesis. Cyanobacteria originated in a freshwater or terrestrial environment, and first appeared in the middle Archean eon. They are probably the mos...