Researchers from Michigan State University and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology in Germany have repurposed bacterial microcompartments (each about 40 nanometers in diameter) and programmed them to produce valuable chemicals from inexpensive starting ingredients. The researchers engineered the microcompartments to turn the simple and inexpensive compounds formate and acetate into pyruvate, bringing enzymes and these compounds together in the same, smaller space, rather than having them spread out throughout a bacterial cell.
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