They blasted water samples with neutrons. To do this, the group used a second technique called neutron scattering. The team checked that what the simulation modeled is as close as possible to what “actually happened” to the water at deep pressure. His group did more than just run a simulation, he says. Harrison Laurent is a physicist on the Leeds team. That model used some of Yancey’s data showing how TMAO levels increase with depth. Qwerter, sevela.p, Michal Maňas, Magasjukur2/Wikimedia Commons ( Public Domain)ĭougan and her team used a computer model to simulate water molecules under pressure - with and without TMAO. The image shows how water molecules interact to form a 3-D network under normal air pressure. And if that shape gets warped, those proteins “can’t work very well.” That would cause problems because proteins, he notes, are the “universal machinery of life.” And the British team has now shown how TMAO can protect proteins under pressure. “The weight of the water pushes water molecules into proteins and distorts them,” Yancey explains. And that pressure doesn’t just press down. She’s a marine biologist at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Geneseo. There, the pressure is “about the equivalent of an elephant standing on top of your thumb,” says Mackenzie Gerringer. It’s known as the hadal zone (named for the Greek god Hades who ruled the underworld). That’s especially true in the oceans’ deep trenches. For example, it explains how a water strider can skitter across a pond surface without sinking.īut extreme pressure squashes this network of water molecules. That gives water many of its special properties. They form a tetrahedral (pyramid-like) structure. Water molecules normally stick together like little magnets. It used physics to unlock the secret workings of this molecule. “I’m not a physical chemist,” Yancey says, “so I couldn’t analyze the mechanism.” But in the new study, the British team has picked up where his left off. Harrison Laurent et al/Communications Chemistry 2022 ( CC BY) As the depths increased, species living there had increasing amounts of TMAO - shown here as blue centers in the ball-and-stick figures of water molecules.
The graph shows representative fish species at three different ocean depths.
0 kommentar(er)
