Denitrification detected for the first time in eukaryotes
An international team of European scientists was able to prove that an important metabolic pathway of the nitrogen cycle - denitrification - can not only be carried out by bacterial organisms: As the researchers led by Nils Risgaard-Petersen from the Danish Environmental Research Institute in Silkeborg discovered, richer the foraminifera Globobulimina pseudopinescens, living in the oxygen-free sea sediments of the Swedish Gullmar Fjord, absorbs nitrate from the sea water and uses it to oxidize hydrocarbon compounds.
Previously it was considered certain that only bacteria and the primeval Archaea were able to participate in this metabolic process, also known as nitrate respiration, in which molecular nitrogen (N2) is produced in addition to carbon dioxide and water location. Bacterial denitrification removes organic nitrogen compounds from the soil and thus has a significant impact on the global nitrogen cycle.
The surprising finding that a eukaryotic organism, i.e. a creature with real cell nuclei, which is also quite common in the sea, can use nitrate as an oxidizing agent shows, according to the researchers, that the marine nitrogen cycle is still little understood.
