Agenda

BE-POLES’ demonstration of cyanobacteria

23 August 2006

Dr Annick Wilmotte, specialist in Antarctic cyanobacteria at the Center for Protein Engineering (ULg) presented her work on polar cyanobacteria during the annual Congrès Pluraliste des Sciences. This congress is organised for sciences teachers in secondary schools.

Cyanobacteria are bacteria that invented the photosynthesis producing oxygen some billions of years ago and are the ancestors of chloroplasts of plants (organelles that conduct photosynthesis). They live in all kinds of environments, including extreme ones such as the polar regions. Annick explained to teachers how you can culture and visualize them. She demonstrated also a simple chromatographic separation of their pigments, the molecules that capture the light energy to carry out the photosynthesis. Compared to plants, cyanobacteria have a range of special pigments, to better exploit the light energy. The cyanobacterial strains came from a culture collection in elaboration for a project of the Belgian Coordinated Collections of Microorganisms (BCCM), can be separated chromatographically from the surrounding water.

Particularly the user manual with experimental protocols and the demonstration were received as promising tools for teaching aids during next school year, thus reaching one of the main goals of BE-POLES (e.g. outreach of Belgian polar science to teachers).

Recently Annick explained in an interview about MERGE (Microbiological and Ecological Responses to Global Environmental Changes in Polar Regions), an International Polar Year 2007-2008 project which will look at a slice of polar life from microbes up to small plants.

Complementary resources: picture gallery.