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Biodegradation, Biotransformation, and Biocatalysis (B3)

2002; American Society for Microbiology; Volume: 68; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1128/aem.68.10.4699-4709.2002

1098-5336

Rebecca E. Parales, Neil C. Bruce, Andreas Schmid, Lawrence P. Wackett,

Microbial bioremediation and biosurfactants

When one adult meets another at a party, they often get to know each other by asking the question, “What do you do?” Translated, this question asks how you earn a living. When a microbiologist meets a newly isolated bacterium for the first time, the initial question is similar: What does it do? By this the scientist is really asking how that bacterium makes a living energetically; that is, what it will transform in its environment in order to generate more of itself. Bacteria do this a little more directly than humans, taking what they can from their environment without the intermediacy of money, but it amounts to the same thing.