Enzyme Neutralizes Toxic Nitrous Oxide: A New Tool for Reducing Gas in the Atmosphere

An enzyme that can combat nitrous oxide in greenhouse gasses may soon give scientists a potent novel tool for reducing gas in the planet's atmosphere.

Nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, is a potent greenhouse gas 300 times more powerful than CO2. As a human activity that stimulates the production of the gas increases, so do the global emissions of N2O.

Neutralizing Nitrous Oxide with Enzymes: Combating Greenhouse Gas

The study published in the journal Nature, titled "Molecular interplay of an assembly machinery for nitrous oxide reductase," demonstrates how the enzyme is assembled and offers valuable insights into its ability to neutralize nitrous oxide into nitrogen and water.

VAIS Associate Professor Juan Du, Ph.D., the lead researcher says that addressing greenhouse gasses is a major multifaceted undertaking. The study's findings are preliminary but a vital step toward developing new tools to combat one contributor to climate change.

Nitrous oxide reductase is an enzyme specific microbes use to break down nitrogen-based molecules as part of the natural nitrogen cycle of the planet. Using nitrogen-heavy fertilizers tends to overwhelm the microbes' ability to mitigate nitrous oxide, allowing it to seep into the atmosphere. Understanding this is vital to mediating nitrous oxide and reducing its atmospheric levels.

In terms of the enzyme's biotechnological application, it is vital to understand and control the supply of copper ions during its assembly in the cell. The study centers on the membrane protein structure, NosDFY, and the way it accomplishes the assembly of N2O reductase.

Using a host of mapping and modeling methods, the team discovered that the structure acts as a conduit converting chemical energy into mechanical energy. In turn, it powers the delivery of copper ions needed to create more enzymes, reports ScienceDaily.

The recent findings reshape decade-old beliefs regarding the crucial copper delivery system and demonstrate a novel mode of operation for molecules. Although additional research is needed, the findings give detailed blueprints that may be translated into environmental remediation strategies in the future.

Nitrous Oxide and Greenhouse Gasses

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, greenhouse gases trap heat in the planet's atmosphere. It comprises 79% carbon dioxide, 11 % methane, 7% nitrous oxide, and 3% fluorinated gasses.

Nitrous oxide is a gas emitted mostly in agriculture, land use, industrial activities, and the combustion of fossil fuels. Hence, the more human activity on the planet, the more nitrous oxide is emitted into the atmosphere, an amount that cannot be reduced by the natural cycle.

Like many greenhouse gasses, nitrous oxide absorbs the sun's radiation and traps heat in the planet's atmosphere, where it can survive for about 114 years.

Not only does the concentration of these gasses influence the global temperature, but temperature fluctuations caused naturally by climate factors, in turn, alter the concentrations of the gasses.

Warming of the world's oceans due to climate change is believed to be driving the expansion of marine oxygen minimum zones leading to speculations that nitrous oxide emissions from the oceans will only continue to rise.