Chapter 184 Lao Qiu, your illness can be cured! (5.4K)
After collecting moss samples and briefly seeing its magic.
Xu Yun immediately confirmed one thing:
This is the reward given by the system!
And judging from the sanitary conditions of the surrounding area, its effect seems to be more than just purifying carrion.
There is no doubt about it.
This is an extremely valuable discovery.
Or in a strict sense, it should be classified as a quasi-discovery.
Because Xu Yun still doesn't know its purification method, let alone whether it is the moss plant itself or some kind of microorganism living in it that works.
Then he carefully stored the piece of moss in the sampling box, returned along the original path, and crawled back to the ground again.
As soon as he appeared, Guo Yuting and others who were waiting came forward and said:
"Xu Shen, did you find anything down there?"
Xu Yun nodded, pondered for a moment, and said:
"There is a suspected unknown discovery, but the specific situation cannot be determined yet."
"Well, Xiao Guo, you ask the masters to cover the well first and go to the next location to take samples. I will explain it at the school."
Guo Yuting nodded vaguely:
"Oh, okay."
Xu Yun then watched the maintenance workers cover the manhole cover with his own eyes. After confirming that the sealing was completed, he said to Guo Yuting:
"Xiao Guo, please remember to come to the fourth floor of the medical center to find me on Friday. I will arrange work for you then. I have something to do here, so go ahead."
After speaking, without waiting for Guo Yuting to answer, he turned around and left the scene in a hurry.
At present, he knows nothing about the viability time of the moss samples and other information, so he must rush back to the laboratory as soon as possible to test the samples.
The distance between the southeast gate and the medical center is not very close. One is in the middle district and the other is in the outermost corner of the east district. The actual distance is close to five kilometers.
So Xu Yun jogged for half an hour before arriving downstairs at the medical center.
But while running, he suddenly discovered something:
I don’t know if it was influenced by the "Laifu Sword Art" practiced in the Northern Song Dynasty, but my physical fitness seems to be...
Okay, just for a moment?
Xu Yun's body shape is neither fat nor thin, but he has always been in a sub-healthy state due to long-term visits to laboratories and libraries.
The five-kilometer run was fine, but it was impossible to breathe as evenly as now.
Could it be said that the physical quality increased in the copy will also be fed back to the real body?
This is somewhat interesting.
However, considering that the immediate priority is to study moss, Xu Yun can only suppress this curiosity in his heart for the time being.
He hurriedly entered the elevator and came to the laboratory.
When he arrived outside the lab.
Qiu Sheng, Li Yan, Ren Yongcun, Zhou Peiyao and others had received his notice in advance and were waiting outside the door.
"Lao Qiu, Xiao Li, Xiao Ren, Xiao Zhou."
Xu Yun greeted them in turn, then raised the sample container in his hand and said:
"Time is tight, so I won't say any polite words. I would also like to ask everyone to work hard and help get this sample identified."
Qiu Sheng and others nodded in unison:
"Understood!"
When he was studying the fifth-generation imidacloprid, Xu Yun specially set up a WeChat chat group of seven people in order to facilitate communication among members.
I was just on my way.
He briefly described his findings through the group's voice function and asked everyone to rush to the laboratory as soon as possible.
Then there was a scene of everyone waiting outside the door.
Although the research team at this time has exceeded the deadline, it will theoretically be withdrawn.
However, due to the broad prospects of Xu Yun’s imidacloprid, HKUST generously lent this BSL-3 level laboratory to Xu Yun indefinitely.
As for the nature of BSL-3.
Since some sensitive topics are involved, I won’t go into details here.
In short, the configuration is much higher than that of ordinary biomedical laboratories.
After entering the laboratory.
Everyone quickly settled into their respective positions and quickly entered the experimental state.
Mentioned previously.
There are two possibilities for the source of the purification ability of the entire moss:
1. Moss is a new type of plant that has not been discovered before and can secrete purifying substances.
Second, moss is accompanied or parasitized by some or even multiple unknown microorganisms.
Therefore, the first thing Xu Yun and the others did was to determine the source of the moss' purifying power.
Fifteen minutes later.
Zhou Peiyao raised her head from the electron microscope and said to Xu Yunde:
"Xu Shen, I checked the FOC and Flora of China. The shape of moss matches the common aquatic moss."
"In addition, the ITS of the gene has also been detected, and there is no sign of mutation. It can be concluded that it is not a new species and does not have the ability to purify itself."
Xu Yun nodded calmly.
The results of Zhou Peiyao's experiment are very clear, directly ruling out the first possibility.
Therefore, what has the cleaning effect should be some kind of microorganisms present in the moss.
This answer is not surprising.
The total number of microorganisms discovered on the earth, including bacteria, fungi, algae, etc., is about two million.
As for the undiscovered number, it is much larger and fluctuates greatly.
As everyone knows.
There are currently two methods for estimating the number of biological species:
One is to directly ask taxonomy experts to use theoretical calculations to assess how many species there may be in the world that need to be discovered.
Another type of approach is to extrapolate the number of species to the global total based on the number of species in a detailed surveyed area.
However, these methods have many assumptions and limitations, causing the estimated total species numbers to vary widely.
The lowest estimated value is three million, and the highest even reaches 100 million.
A number that is currently more accepted was proposed by Professor Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii at Manoa:
8.7 million, excluding viruses.
He estimated this number by applying the biological taxonomic hierarchy - that is, the numerical trends of the phyla, orders, families, genera and species learned in biology textbooks (org/content/113/21/5970)
For example, a certain animal phylum = 10 classes = 100 orders = 1,000 families = 10,000 genera = 100,000 species. At the same time, the number of taxonomic levels of different taxa has a similar trend, and higher-order classifications are relatively stable relative to species.
Therefore, after a series of simulations, a more reliable total species number can finally be estimated.
This paper by Professor Camilo Mora is currently one of the most cited statistical manuscripts in the world, and it can be considered a relatively authoritative inference.
8.7 million versus 2 million.
Therefore, Xu Yun was really not surprised at all to discover the existence of some or even multiple microorganisms in the moss.
Then he thought for a moment and said to Qiu Sheng:
"Lao Qiu, let's do the 16S similarity test first."
Qiu Sheng nodded, quickly put on his gloves and said:
"Okay, I'll do it right away."
Generally speaking.
If it is a strain grown in a petri dish, it is often not difficult to detect or compare.
However, if the object is a sample enriched in nature, the operation will be more troublesome.
The 16S similarity detection that Xu Yun refers to refers to the detection of RNA components of the ribosome small subunit.
That is 16SrRNA.
The length of this part is about 1500nt, which varies slightly in different species. It is considered one of the nine current mainstream new substance detection steps.
Five minutes later.
Qiu Sheng raised his head and said to Xu Yun:
"Lao Xu, you're ready. What primer do you think we should use?"
Xu Yun thought for a while and quickly said:
"1492R."
"Okay!"
Half an hour later.
Qiu Sheng raised his head and snapped his fingers:
"It's done, it's expanded. Do you have the BLAST key?"
Xu Yun gave him a thumbs up to indicate a job well done, then walked to the console and handed out a bunch of keys.
Students who have done new species testing should all know this.
The boundaries of 16S similarity detection are actually a bit blurry, because the detection similarity thresholds of different taxa are different.
For example, some are 97% and some are 99%.
Just under normal circumstances.
Those with a similarity of more than 97% can be considered to be the same species.
If the similarity is less than 97%, it can be considered to be different species and proceed to the next stage of testing.
However, such a not very precise detection method is still a hurdle that cannot be overcome in the detection of many new products:
After testing, most samples will be found to be more than 99.99% similar and are of the same species as other certain microorganisms.
all in all.
This technology is still reliable in determining attributes.
After a while.
Qiu Sheng raised his head with surprise, and his voice suddenly rose a little higher:
"Old Xu, the similarity is 46.9%, 46.9%!!"
"There is no doubt that this is a new class of things!"
Xu Yun took a serious look at him and confirmed:
"Is there only one new thing?"
"Yes, there is only one kind!"
Xu Yun nodded thoughtfully and said:
"Then let's continue with the identification of phospholipid fatty acids and respiratory quinones."
As everyone knows.
There are generally nine processes for new product identification:
1. 16S similarity.
2. Morphological observation.
For example, the shape, size, flagella, etc. of the bacterium, as well as the determination of optimal growth conditions.
3. Identification of phospholipid fatty acids, which is genus specific.
4. Respiratory quinone, that is, look at which respiratory quinone is dominant. This is species-specific.
5. Molecular hybridization, that is, determining the genome sequence, just a draft, and then comparing it with closely related species.
If the similarity is more than 70%, it is one species, and if it is less than 70%, it is a different species.
6. Carbon source utilization, see which carbon sources can be used, there are a total of 95 carbon source tests.
7. API kit identification, one aspect of physiological and biochemical identification.
8. GC content.
9. Gram stain.
After inspection in these aspects, you can determine whether it is a new species. (Note: I don’t know if you would like to read a more detailed writing like this? There should be no other writing about this kind of detailed process. It is actually very troublesome to find people to ask. If I still get criticized, I won’t write it next time)
The fifth process, that is, molecular hybridization, can be ignored this time - after all, the 46.9% measured in the first part is too obvious.
Considering the time issue, Xu Yun divided the several steps one by one, and several tool people, ahem, and members of the research team performed them simultaneously.
Five hours later.
A final report is released.
"A new type of microorganism of the genus Arthrospora. Its shape can be observed under a 1000x oil microscope, and it has a large number of pseudofilaments in vitro."
"This kind of false silk can be separated and combined with the target to complete a certain chemical reaction. Is this a bald attack?"
"A piece of moss can concentrate a very small amount of 8,000 units of new substances at high density, and its characteristics are somewhat similar to Lactobacillus acidophilus. Huh?"
Then looking at one of the reports, Xu Yun raised his head in confusion and asked Qiu Sheng:
"Lao Qiu, the new product has the most obvious effect on purifying food residues?"
Qiu Sheng nodded, pointed to a petri dish not far away and said:
"After our preliminary testing, this new type of microorganism can effectively curb the generation of ammonia, organic acids and sulfides in the residue."
"And it is extremely lethal to bacteria such as Neisseria and anaerobic Streptococcus."
Xu Yun was slightly startled:
"Neisseria and Anaerobic Streptococcus?"
But soon, he reacted:
These two bacteria are one of the standard secretions of human saliva and gums:
80 million Neisseria bacteria can be found in every milliliter of ordinary saliva, and 1 billion anaerobic Streptococci can be found in every gram of gum secretions.
It is normal for people to spit out bones, tomato skins, and half-cut maggots in the cafeteria to be infected with these bacteria, and eventually flow into the sewer pipes.
Then Xu Yun pointed to the report and said to Qiu Sheng:
"Lao Qiu, is the new species only effective against food residue and saliva bacteria?"
Qiu Sheng pondered for a moment and replied:
"To be precise, the new species also has a certain inhibitory effect on some other odor sources, but the effect is far less than that of food residue and saliva bacteria."
Xu Yun glanced at him doubtfully and asked:
"What are the other sources of odor?"
Qiu Sheng immediately raised his fingers:
"The Xiao Ba Xiao burger in the toilet, and the small piece of smelly socks that Xiao Li asked his roommate to bring for two weeks, and..."
"Stop, stop, stop, stop!"
A black line suddenly appeared on Xu Yun's forehead, and he quickly stopped Qiu Sheng's description.
Then he forced himself to calm down and continued:
"Okay, you might as well report the data directly."
Qiu Sheng smiled wickedly and picked up another report from the table:
"Compared with other sources of odor, the new species' effect on food residues and saliva bacteria can be described as incredible."
"For example, the biological efficacy of a new plant we collected is only 8,000 units, which is pitifully small."
"But the time it takes to completely clean a 0.3 cubic centimeter piece of food residue is only twenty minutes."
As he spoke, Qiu Sheng couldn't help but make an 8 sign in front of Xu Yun:
"This is only 8,000 units. Look at the current units of penicillin. Which one does not start with a million units?"
"Old Xu, do you know what this means?"
Xu Yun was silent for a moment, then raised his eyebrows:
"Does this mean your bad breath can be cured?" (End of Chapter)