Can I read Biochemistry of Microbial Degradation on EtoBox?

Biochemistry of Microbial Degradation by Colin Ratledge is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is Biochemistry of Microbial Degradation about?

Life on the planet depends on microbial activity. The recycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, oxygen, phosphate and all the other elements that constitute living matter are continuously in flux: microorganisms participate in key steps in these processes and without them life would cease within a few short years. The comparatively recent advent of man-made chemicals has now challenged the environment: where degradation does not occur, accumulation must perforce take place. Surprisingly though, even the most recalcitrant of molecules are gradually broken down and very few materials are truly impervious to microbial attack. Microorganisms, by their rapid growth rates, have the most rapid turn-over of their DNA of all living cells. Consequently they can evolve altered genes and therefore produce novel enzymes for handling'foreign'compounds - the xenobiotics - in a manner not seen with such effect in other organisms. Evolution, with the production of micro-organisms able to degrade molecules hitherto intractable to breakdown, is therefore a continuing event. Now, through the agency of genetic manipulation, it is possible to accelerate this process of natural evolution in a very directed

Author

Colin Ratledge

Publisher

kluwer academic publishers

Published

2012

Language

EN

ISBN

9789401116879

Subjects

Science, Chemistry, Agriculture