Post #4794

Scientists Recreate Rare Pigment Behind Octopus 'Superpowers' Octopuses and other cephalopods are masters of camouflage, thanks largely to color-changing skin that can help them seemingly vanish into the background. Now, researchers report a big step towards being able to recreate their superpower. A team led by UC San Diego was able to mass-produce a key pigment, xanthommatin, that occurs in the psychedelic skin of many cephalopods. Until now, xanthommatin has proven impractical to collect from animals or make in a lab. The researchers technically didn't make the pigment. They bioengineered bacteria to make it, coaxing microbes to not only produce this rare substance, but to do so with unprecedented efficiency, yielding up to 1,000 times more xanthommatin than previous methods. Easier access to xanthommatin could aid efforts to study cephalopod camouflage, potentially shedding new light on this wonder of nature – and offering clues to help us mimic it. Beyond boosting humanity's quest for octopus powers, the new study also has implications for our growing grasp of microbial manufacturing. If bacteria can be similarly persuaded to produce other chemicals, it could lead to major upgrades from current industrial practices. "We've developed a new technique that has sped up our capabilities to make a material, in this case xanthommatin, in a bacterium for the first time," says senior author Bradley Moore, a marine chemist with Scripps Oceanography and the University of California San Diego. "This natural pigment is what gives an octopus or a squid its ability to camouflage – a fantastic superpower – and our achievement to advance production of this material is just the tip of the iceberg," Moore says. Source:ScienceAlert @EverythingScience