The microorganisms are widely found in habitat as sea grasses, marine sediments and corals which belong to a family called Pseudoalteromonas.
The chemical that these microbes produce is a toxic compound called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) which is a subgroup of brominated fire retardants that are mixed into foam, textiles and electronics to lift up temperature at which the products burn. It is already banned in Europe and the US.
Earlier, experts believed that this environmentally-unfriendly compounds were only man-made, but this latest findings suggest that it is both natural as well as artificial.
“We find it very surprising and a tad alarming that flame retardant-like chemicals are biologically synthesized by common bacteria in the marine environment,” said Bradley Moore, senior author and a professor at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in the US.
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in the US have recognized a group of ten genes drawn in the synthesis of around 15 bromine containing polyaromatic compounds consisting of some PBDEs. This research is the first to separate and recognize microbes that synthesize these compounds that may assist in giving explanation about the observed distribution pattern of PBDEs in the aquatic food chain.
Vinayak Agarwal, PhD researcher with the Scripps Center for Oceans and Human Health at UC San Diego, said, “The next step is to look more broadly in the marine environment for the distribution of this gene signature and to document how these compounds are entering the food chain.” The study has been published online in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.