Tiny Ocean Plants Offer Biochemical Enigma by Brian Thomas, M.S.
* Phosphorus, number 15 on the periodic table of elements, is
considered a basic component of all cell membranes. But the
recent discovery of single-celled photosynthetic organisms
surviving without the chemical element in their membranes is
going to require some major rewrites to biochemistry textbooks.1
Phosphorus is in short supply in the Sargasso Sea, located in
the north Atlantic, where researchers from numerous institutions
and universities found several autotrophs, including some
diatoms and four different genera of photosynthetic bacteria,
that can make cell membrane substitutes. In their study
published online in Nature, the scientists report that the
bacteria substitute a sulfur molecule called
sulphoquinovosyldiacylglycerol (SQDG) in place of the standard
phosphorus-containing molecule.2 Not only does the bacteria’s
SQDG not need phosphorus, but it doesn’t need nitrogen either!
These tiny creatures still require phosphorus for their D