African tree yields promising bacterium 1 July 2002 | A team of
biologists at the French Institute of Research for Development
(IRD) has isolated a new strain of the bacterium Escherichia
coli from Shea cake, a by-product of the African karité tree.
The bacterium could potentially be used to produce compounds
valuable to the chemical and food-processing industries. "One
would never have thought of this bacterium for such a purpose,"
says Marc Labat, a member of the IRD research team, which
specialises in microbial biotechnology. Working jointly with
scientists in Burkina Faso and Tunisia, and the French
Agricultural Research Institute (INRA), his team discovered the
new type of E. coli — a bacterium normally found in the stomach
of warm-blooded animals. Analysis showed that this so-called C2
strain could transform toxic compounds (such as tannins) into
non-acidic ones (such as phenol derivatives), which are of use
to the food and chemical industries. Genetically modified
strains of E. coli are already used co