A new kind of magnetic bug has been studied by researcher Dennis Bazylinski and team from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas that could open the way to biotech and nano-tech uses isolated and successfully grown.
A study reveals that Magnetotactic bacteria are simple, single-cell organisms, along magnetic fields they orient and navigate due to the nano-sized crystals of magnetic minerals magnetite or greigite they produce.
They make their internal crystals, called magnetosomes, useful in drug delivery and medical imagingthe researcher Dennis Bazylinski and team from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, were the first to cultivate a greigite-producing species, Greigite is an iron sulphide mineral that equivalent of the iron oxide magnetite.
In fact BW-1, greigite-producing bacterium that had been found by collecting water samples around 280 feet below sea level on the edge of Death Valley National Park in US, produces both greigite and magnetite, has two sets of magnetosome genes which produce only one mineral and have only one set of magnetosome genes.
Reporting the new kind of study, The researcher Bazylinski said,”Because greigite-producing bacteria have never been isolated, the crystals haven’t been tested for the types of biomedical and other applications that currently use magnetite.”
