Microbes pluck out phosphorus

摘要

Hardy bacteria that live in an arsenic bath survive in part by keeping poison from entering their cells, scientists have found. Just one tiny tweak in a hydrogen bond is enough to let the microbes pick out the phosphate they need to build their DNA-while keeping arsenic out. The work helps explain how famous bacteria in the arsenic-rich waters of Mono Lake, Calif., manage to live there without incorporating the toxic arsenic into their DNA, as a controversial 2010 paper had claimed (SN: 2/25/12, p. 10).