Bacteria Use Caffeine as Food Source

Kendall Roberson

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2011/05/24/bacteria_use_caffeine_as_food_source.html

A new bacteria, found by a doctoral student at the University of Iowa, has been discovered that uses caffeine as a food source. This bacteria, Pseudomonas putida, uses new digestive enzymes to degrade the caffeine and uses the nutrients to live and grow. This bacteria breaks down the caffeine in to carbon dioxide and ammonia. Caffeine is made up of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen, which the bacteria needs in order to grow. The caffeine molecule contains three structures, called methyl groups, which are made up of 1 carbon atom and 3 hydrogen atoms. Bacteria can remove these methyl groups and can technically just live on caffeine.


I believe this new discovery is unique, great, and weird all at the same time. I like how no one else has been able to discover this, even though we have had to technology to do it for a while. I think it's great now that we have the knowledge of another way bacteria can grow and live. I believe this discovery is weird because I never thought that bacteria could just live off of caffeine. I thought they had to live off of food and water like us. I am very shocked by this discovery, but I think it is one that will benefit us in the future.