Chapter 183 Lao Qiu, your illness will be saved! (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.
no doubt.
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 is responsible.
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 showed up, Guo Yuting and others who were waiting here 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 to the school."
Guo Yuting nodded in understanding:
"Oh well."
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 I'll be busy first."
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. My physical fitness seems to be
Okay, just for a while?
Xu Yun's body shape is neither fat nor thin, but due to long-term visits to laboratories and libraries, he has always been in a sub-healthy state.
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 arrived at the laboratory.
When he arrived outside the laboratory.
Qiu Sheng, Li Yan, Ren Yongcun, Zhou Peiyao and others had received his notice in advance and were all 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:
"clear!"
When he was studying the fifth-generation imidacloprid, Xu Yun specially created 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 its deadline, it should theoretically be withdrawn.
However, because the imidacloprid developed by Xu Yun had broad prospects, the University of Science and Technology generously lent this BSL-3 level laboratory to Xu Yun indefinitely.
As for the nature of BSL-3?
Since it involves some sensitive topics, 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 before.
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, the 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's 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 has no purification ability of its own."
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 that have been discovered on the earth, including bacteria, fungi, algae, etc., is about two million.
As for the undiscovered number, it is even greater and fluctuates greatly.
As we all know.
There are currently two methods for estimating the number of biological species:
One is to directly ask taxonomy experts to use theoretical calculations to evaluate how many species there may be in the world that need to be discovered.
Another type of method is based on the number of species in a detailed survey area and extrapolating to the total number of species in the world.
However, these methods have many assumptions and limitations, resulting in large differences in the estimated total species number.
The lowest estimated value is three million, and the highest even reaches 100 million.
A number that is currently more widely accepted was put forward by Professor Ora from the University of Hawaii at Manoa:
8.7 million, not including viruses.
He estimated this number by applying the biological classification hierarchy, which is the numerical trend of the phyla, orders, families, genera and species that he has learned in biology textbooks (/t/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 more stable than species.
Therefore, after a series of simulations, a more reliable total number of species can finally be estimated.
This paper by Professor Ora 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 not surprised at all to find 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 been 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.
If the similarity exceeds 97%, it 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 detection.
However, even such a less refined 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 attribution.
After a while.
Qiu Sheng raised his head with surprise, and his voice suddenly rose a little higher:
"Lao Xu, the similarity is 46.9%, 46.9%!!"
"There is no doubt that this is a new type of thing!"
Xu Yun looked at him seriously and confirmed:
"Is there just 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 we all know.
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. Phospholipid fatty acid identification, this is genus specific.
4. Respiratory quinones, that is, look at which respiratory quinone is dominant. This is species-specific.
5. Molecular hybridization, that is, determining the genome sequence, a draft will do, 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 probably checking these aspects, you can determine whether it is a new species. (Note: I wonder if you would like to read a more detailed write-up like this? There should be no other written about this kind of detailed process. It is actually very troublesome to find someone to ask.
If I’m still criticized, I won’t write it next time)
The fifth process, which 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, with several tool workers and members of the research team performing the work simultaneously.
Five hours later.
A final report has been 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. The characteristics are somewhat similar to Lactobacillus acidophilus, right?"
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 Streptococci?”
But soon, he reacted:
These two types of Western Army 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, spit out tomato skins, and spit out half maggots in the cafeteria, which are contaminated 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 residues 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 residues and saliva bacteria."
Xu Yun glanced at him doubtfully and asked:
"What are the other sources of odor?"
Qiu Sheng immediately held up his fingers:
"There's Xiaoba's hamburger in the toilet, and a small piece of hand socks that Xiao Li asked his roommate for that he hasn't washed 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 it only takes about twenty minutes for it to completely clean a piece of food residue that is 0.3 cubic centimeters in size."
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 at the million level?"
"Old Xu, do you know what this means?"
Xu Yun was silent for a moment, then raised his eyebrows:
