Posted 08.09.2012 at 3:23 pm
8 Comments
Myoglobin Structure
Wikimedia Commons
For all our attempts to find it on other worlds, water may not be the most essential molecule for life, a new study suggests. A protein that brings oxygen to muscle can function without it, using a synthetic polymer in its place.
A study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society addresses whether proteins can behave normally in the absence of a water coating, which gives them their viscosity. Adam Perriman at the University of Bristol in the UK stripped myoglobin protein, a blood protein that transports oxygen, of its water molecules and replaced it with a synthetic material. This polymer material acts as a surfactant, wetting the proteins and turning them into a liquid agglomeration. There’s no solvent, no extra liquid, to carry them around and help them move.
“The proteins are themselves the liquid,” Perriman puts it to New Scientist.
He and his colleagues observed the modified proteins’ movement, which indicates how well they’re functioning, and found they moved as well as proteins in water. They could even still bind oxygen, a key function of myoglobin.
This modified protein could be used for wound dressings, carrying oxygen toward the skin, as NewSci reports. This doesn’t mean life could survive without any water at all, because the protein would never be found this way in nature. But could we produce waterless blood protein for easy transport? Artificial blood already exists; maybe future versions will not need water to work. One of the main obstacles facing extraterrestrial colonists is water — the lack thereof anywhere else we can find, and the huge costs involved in transporting our own supply. But maybe future humans pumped full of polymerized blood could survive without it.
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Caugh! Caugh! I can't breath!! Drink this. What is it? Oh, its just synthetic polymer, lol.
The drink of Astronuats and taste, GRRRRreat! Its when you can't breath in space! Comes in Orange TANG flavor too!;)
Robot
Please learn to spell "cough" and please stop posting useless comments on everything.
Thanks
haywall,
Thanks for the spelling update lol, I appreciate it. Oh and for your second request, I will put it on my Christmas list for you. I am not sure you will get it; Christmas is several months away, so be nice. ;)
@haywall
what robot said was reasonably ontopic....
you on the other had sound rather trollish
now that you got me trolololin
back on to the topic...
this is a cool mod for proteins think in a few years this thing replace organic blood entirely and possibly an artificial lung being as it can take in oxygen .
all astronauts would need is kid of like a dialysis machine to breath on another planet.
technically we can engineer humans to survive breathing other gasses instead of CO2 or drink other liquids instead of water. so yeah life can exist with the present of liquid water.
"You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." -Morpheus
JediMindset,
I am glad to see you blogging again!!! Yes in the future, a manufactored robotic humanoid could make good use of this synthetic polymer to space exploration!
correct.
"You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." -Morpheus
Shoot dang! How is a multi-colored phone cord going to help us live without water?