Scientists have discovered a protein called Balon that allowed a bacterium, Psychrobacter urativorans, to abruptly shut down in unfavourable living conditions and ‘restart’ just as quickly when they improved.
- Bacteria become dormant as a result of ribosome hibernation. Ribosomes are the machines that make proteins in cells.
- In harsh conditions like extremely cold weather, scientists knew there were special proteins that would cover the ribosomes and hinder their activity, shutting the cell.
- But newfound protein Balon achieves the same thing by doing something else.
- Scientists found Balon was bound to the bacterial ribosome’s active centres, thus stopping the ribosomes from making new proteins.
- The new study was published in Journal Nature.
