Model of the enzyme that the researchers investigated in their study. The two grey spheres represent the active centre that binds to the pesticide to cleave it.
How do bacteria manage to adapt to synthetic environmental toxins and, for example, to even develop strategies for using a pesticide and chemical warfare agent as food within less than 70 years’ The evolutionary adaptations underlying such processes have now been studied in detail by an international team of researchers. The scientists looked at an enzyme that they had isolated from bacteria that had been exposed to pesticides in the vicinity of factories producing these pesticides. Using a novel combination of methods, the researchers found out which mutations had occurred in the gene over the years - and how these mutations led to biochemical changes that now enable the enzyme to cleave the pesticide.
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