BREMEM, Germany, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Scientists say they've discovered how an acidic protein helps Magnetotactic bacteria navigate along the Earth's magnetic field.
The bacteria are aquatic microorganisms that use unique organelles called magnetosomes to navigate, but much of the biochemistry behind magnetosome structures has eluded scientists.
Now Dirk Schüler of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Germany, and colleagues say they used gene deletion in a magnetotactic bacterium called Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense to show the important role of the MamJ protein.
The researchers say the acidic protein seems to influence how chains of magnetite crystals form and remain stable within the cell. The authors also provide the first direct evidence for a novel cytoskeletal structure that anchors those chains, and suggest magnetosome architecture represents one of the highest levels of structure in bacterial cells.
The study appears in both the online and printed journal Nature.
