Nylonase: the sleeping giant

[FreeThinker]

http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/apr04.html

 

Nylon is an artificial material first made in the 1930's. It is found nowhere else in nature. You can imagine the surprise on the face of two Japanese scientists when they discovered bacteria that are capable of digesting nylon. The bacteria, Flavobacterium, do this by a specific protein named nylonase. Since nylon is only around 60 years old, this is a benefitial mutation which gave rise to a novel characteristic in a very short ammount of time. I have not been able to get my hand on the acctual paper by the two Japanese scientists and the information on the internet is rare at best.Despite my best efforts, the link above, from talk origins, is the best information I could find.

Can anyone provide some additional links?

[gcol]

Absolutely facinating. No more info from me, but as an example of the sheer dogged tenacity of evolution to exploit the most obscure environmental oportunistic, niche, it is an eye-opening example. Especially if it can be proven that this bacteria had no previous hiding place. I tried to avoid thinking of the bacteria threat to the Alaska pipeline, but could not resist it. Sorry.

[insane_alien]

as long as bacteria don't start eating computer chips

[Phi for All]

I tried to avoid thinking of the bacteria threat to the Alaska pipeline, but could not resist it. Sorry.

There are many applications for nylon in machine parts for cars and planes, even nuclear power. While it might bring a smile to think of people's clothes falling off spontaneously, this bacteria could be a definite threat in many areas.

[Dr. Dalek]

This also poses an example of how humans are effecting evolution; such as we discussed in "Can Natural Selection Keep Up.":

Personally, I think (from theory, rather than more reliable empirical evidence) that the world today has begun a massive speciation event, with thousands, or even millions, of new species slowly developing in response to what man has done. I predict that, when genome analysis becomes quick and cheap, that we will be able to plot these genetic changes in wild populations.

 

I would not be surprised at all if within the next century we were to find many plants and animals, and bacteria that had started to take advantage of manmade conditions in order to survive. I could probably think of some current examples as well such as manatees living in waters heated by nuclear power plants.

This is a topic that has not gone unimagined. I recall that years ago in the sixth grade my class was doing a project on evolution and we were trying to imagine how life forms might adapt to human condions in millions of years. Some examples would include, bugs that looked like popcorn and a creature that camoflaged itself as hot top.

[gcol]

While googling nylonase, Found at least two sites that are using it to prove the two opposites.... ID and evolution. You can find and chose your own.

 

Funny old world. Does this firmly put IDers in the crackpot category?

 

I sense this thread has already been derailed, so I feel no guilt in pushing it further until it is dragged back with hard evidence

[Cyberman]

There are many applications for nylon in machine parts for cars and planes, even nuclear power. While it might bring a smile to think of people's clothes falling off spontaneously, this bacteria could be a definite threat in many areas.

 

What I'd like to know is how fast does Nylonase work?

Obviously the bacteria probably can't eat away a good sized peice of Nylon in a matter of hours, but if nylon were used in a machine how long would it have after tha bacteria started eating it before the nylon became damaged, or useless?

[Phi for All]

I saw the ID article gcol mentions. The citations they gave were:

Documentation of mutations producing new features includes the following:

the ability of a bacterium to digest nylon (Negoro et al. 1994; Thomas n.d.; Thwaites 1985)

This may help.

[Martin]

From the original post:

Can anyone provide some additional links?

 

 

While googling nylonase' date=' Found at least two sites ...[/quote']

 

compliments on having the gumption to google

it's the kind of thing that is asking to be checked

glad you found some hits

another time you would be welcome to post the links and save the rest of us trouble

[Phi for All]

another time you would be welcome to post the links and save the rest of us trouble

Friends don't link friends to ID sites.

[gcol]

I am wary of linking to specific sites. No one site acurately reflects the nuances of my viewpoint. I was just indicating a general, unfortunate but largely predictable reaction. Very quaint how two opposing camps can twist the same basic data to "prove" their beliefs.

[Martin]

I am wary of linking to specific sites. No one site acurately reflects the nuances of my viewpoint. I was just indicating a general, unfortunate but largely predictable reaction. Very quaint how two opposing camps can twist the same basic data to "prove" their beliefs.

 

I understand your reluctance. Some stuff is unappetizing. For example I found a huge amount of technical info here, citations to scholarly journals etc. but it is mixed with obfuscation (garbage) because it is an open thread.

 

http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/jan/24/speaker_stands_behind_theory/?city_local

 

You have to do your own filtering. The citations to peer-review journal articles and the technical discussion is WAY AT THE END OF THE THREAD where somebody named "Kodiak" comes in. Kodiak knows the literature and gene-geek stuff.

 

This information is rather OLD, but that doesnt mean it's wrong. The report of bacteria eating nylon goes back to 1975. the GENETIC analysis of the plasmid carrying the genes coding for the proteins that break down nylon seems to be mostly from the 1990s.

 

If I could find an already filtered place where there was only academically sound info, I would give you the link. But the best I have at the moment is go there and scroll down to the Kodiak post of March 29, 2006 at 8:00 PM

It is almost at the end. On brief acquaintance, the guy inspires my confidence

 

Judge for yourself, here is a sample exerpt:

===quote===

First, a little background. Nylon is an artificial polymer not found in nature. Indeed, not only is the nylon polymer not found in nature, neither are the linkages that bind the subunits together. Nylon first entered the environment in the 1930's. By 1975, bacteria capable of hydrolysing nylon were found in wastewater from nylon plants.

 

Now, it is obvious that the gene(s) for hydrolysing nylon cannot have been present from the beginning, as in the absence of the substrate (nylon, not present before 1930), the gene product is non-functional, and the gene would be mutated to uselessness (or an entirely different function) in a few hundred years by random mutations, let alone thousands.

 

......

......

 

Some more background, in Flavobacterium there are four nylonase genes, nylA, nylB and nylB' (which are duplicates) and nylC, carried on one plasmid. In Pseudomonas there are two nylonase genes (nyl A and nyl B, homologous to the nylA and nylB genes in Flavobacterium) carried on two different plasmids. The nylB gene does most of the heavy lifting, so to speak, and it is the nylB gene that was formed from a deletion mutation and subsequent frame shift in the RSII repetitive element. The key here is that the mutation was in an internally repetitive sequence of DNA. Frameshifts in non-repetitive sequences usually end up with a high probability of producing a premature stop codon, resulting in production of short non-functional proteins. However, repetitive sequences are very likely to not produce premature stop codons, and it is likely that long, functional proteins can be produced by frameshifts in these proteins. In the case of nylB, an insertion of a T at position 99 in the repetitive sequence resulted in a start codon and a stop codon some 392 amino acids away....

===endquote===

 

citations to journal articles come a few posts further on

 

the newspaper that has the message-board where this thread is is the "Lawrence Journal" of Lawrence Kansas. I don't know anything about the newspaper or the context. I am forced to judge Kodiak posts on their own merits.

[Mokele]

On a related note, there's actually a species of fungus that lives in concentrated formaldehyde, such as that found in museum specimen jars. It got into one of the snakes when I was in Guam last year, and my prof recognized it because he'd encounted it decades ago in a shipment of preserved sea snakes from Malaysia. It's apparently common knowledge among biological specimen curators.

 

Mokele

[YT2095]

actualy the whole idea isn`t all that far fetched, as kids we would take an old pair of Nylon stokings, stretch the material over an open jam jar then hold it in place with elestic bands.

leave them outside and the simple acids in the rain would eventualy eat holes in the stuff.

there are bacteria that can live in Sulphuric acid that would burn us and in temps that certainly would, out own stomach acid isn`t something to mess with either.

 

a bacteria that can eat Nylon doesn`t surprise me one little bit

[gcol]

as kids we would take an old pair of Nylon stokings' date=' stretch the material over an open jam jar then hold it in place with elestic bands.

leave them outside and the simple acids in the rain would eventualy eat holes in the stuff.

[/quote']

 

Pre-pubescence, I hope. After that one becomes aware of more pleasurable and productive uses.

 

The old thick yellow London smogs of open coalfire days that turned midday into night, melted nylons while they were being worn. I was there, I saw it. Did no good for you lungs either.

[YT2095]

Pre-pubescence' date=' I hope. After that one becomes aware of more pleasurable and productive uses.

[/quote']

 

what? like Masks for a Bank Robbery, naah, I was always an Honest kid