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Fermentation is the transformation of solid food by various bacterium , fungi , and the enzymes they bring forth . masses harness this transformative big businessman for create alcohol , to preserve food , and to make it more digestible , less toxic , and/or more delicious . It ’s played an subservient role in human cultural organic evolution and has become a ethnical phenomenon of sorts . That said , it is important to recognize that fermentation is a raw phenomenon much broader than human culinary exercise ; cells in our bodies are adequate to of fermentation . In other words , humans did not invent or make zymosis ; it would be more exact to state that fermentation create us .
The following excerpt is fromThe Art of Fermentationby Sandor Ellix Katz . It has been accommodate for the World Wide Web .
Biologists use the terminus fermentation to describe anaerobiotic metabolism , the output of vim from food without oxygen . ferment bacteria are thought to have emerged relatively early from the primordial prebiotic soup , before the atmosphere had a sufficient assiduousness of oxygen to support or evolve aerobic life - form . “ In the first two billion years of life on Earth , bacteria — the only inhabitants — continuously transformed the major planet ’s Earth’s surface and atmosphere and invented all of animation ’s all-important , miniaturized chemical substance system of rules , ” writes life scientist Lynn Margulis.3 The research of Margulis and others has convinced many life scientist that symbiotic relationships between sour bacteria and other early single - prison cell animation - mannequin became permanently body forth as the first eucaryotic cell that plants , animal , and fungi comprise.4 As Margulis and Dorion Sagan explain in their bookMicrocosmos , the mutualism may have begun as a predator - prey relationship :
Eventually some of the prey germinate a tolerance for their aerobic predators , which then remained alive and well in the food - rich interior of the host . Two types of organisms used the product of each other ’s metabolisms . As they reproduce inside the invaded electric cell without do trauma , the predators gave up their independent manner and moved in for good.5
Evolution deduce from such symbiosis is known as symbiogenesis . Microbiologists Sorin Sonea and Léo G. Mathieu complicate on the concept : “ Symbiogenesis with one thousand of unlike bacterial cistron has resolutely enriched the limited metabolic potentiality of eucaryotic organisms , speed up and facilitating their adaptation much more than would have been achieved by random mutation alone . ”6
Bacterial fermentation processes have been part of the context for all life.
Fermentation plays such a broad and full of life part in nutrient cycling that all beings coevolved with it , ourselves included . Through mutualism and coevolution , bacterium merge into new form , spawning all other life . “ For the retiring [ bil- lion ] old age , members of the Bacteria superkingdom have functioned as a major selective force mold eukaryotic evolution , ” state molecular biologists Jian Xu and Jeffrey I. Gordon . “ Coevolved symbiotic relationships between bacterium and multicellular organisms are a large feature of life on Earth . ”7 The grandness of bacterium and our bacterial interactions can not be overstated . We could not exist or function without our bacterial partners .
Like all complex multicellular living - forms , the human body is host to an luxuriant endemic biota . Some geneticist contend that we are “ a composite plant of many specie , ” with a genetic landscape that cover not only the human genome but also those of our bacterial symbionts.8 In our bodies , bacteria outnumber the cell check our alone desoxyribonucleic acid by more than 10 to 1.9 The vast majority of these bacteria — a mind - boggling 100 trillion ( 1014 ) in number — are found in our intestines.10 Bacteria break down food we would not otherwise be able to digest11 and play an of import function , just beginning to be recognize , in influence the balance between energy use and storage.12 Intestinal bacterium produce certain necessary nutrients for us , including type B and K vitamins.13 They allow for us with full of life defence by “ outcompeting invading pathogen for ecological niches and metabolic substrate . ”14 In plus , enteral bacteria are able to tone “ face ” of some of our factor , tie in to “ various and fundamental physiologic functions,”15 including immune reaction . “ grounds of an active dialogue is rapidly spread ” between enteric bacterium and the immune cells of the bowel linings.16
That ’s just the bacterium in our intestine . On our bodies ’ surfaces , microbial communities survive in a great range of discrete niche . “ For model , haired , moist underarms rest a short distance from smooth dry forearms , but these two corner are likely as ecologically unlike as rainforests are to deserts , ” keep an eye on a 2009 study of the genetic multifariousness of pelt bacteria.17 Bacteria inhabit all our surface , particularly the warm sweaty place that stay put moist , as well as our eyes , upper respiratory piece of ground , and orifices ; more than 700 species have been observe in the healthy oral cavity.18
Even our reproduction requires fermentation . The human vagina has been found to release glycogen that supports an autochthonous population of lactobacilli , which ferment the glycogen into lactic acid , thereby protecting the vagina from infective bacteria , which can not survive in an acid environment . “ The presence of lactobacilli as a part of the normal vaginal flora is an significant component of reproductive wellness . ”19 Our indigenous bacterium protect us everywhere and enable us to officiate in myriad means that are just get to be interpret . From an evolutionary perspective , this all-encompassing microbiota “ endows us with functional features that we have not had to germinate ourselves . ”20 This is a miracle of coevolution — the bacterium that coexist with us in our body enable us to be . Microbiologist Michael Wilson notes that “ each exposed open of a human being is colonized by microbes exquisitely adapted to that particular environs . ”21 Yet the dynamics of these microbial population , and how they interact with our body , are still largelyunknown . A 2008 relative genomics analysis of lactic Zen bacteria acknowledge that enquiry is “ just now beginning to expunge the Earth’s surface of the complex family relationship between humans and their microbiota . ”22
Bacteria are such effective coevolutionary partners because they are extremely adaptable and mutable . “Bacteria continually monitor their external and inner environments and compute functional outputs base on entropy leave by their sensory apparatus , ” excuse bacterial geneticist James Shapiro , who reports “ multiple widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and organise DNA particle . ”23 In contrast with our eucaryotic cellular phone , with repair genetic stuff , prokaryotic bacteria have free - floating genes , which they frequently commute . For this reason , some microbiologists reckon it incompatible to view bacteria as clear-cut species . “ There are no metal money in prokaryote , ” state Sorin Sonea and Léo G. Mathieu.24 “ bacterium are much more of a continuum , ” explains Lynn Margulis . “ They just pick up factor , they give away genes , and they are very flexible about that . ”25 Mathieu and Sonea describe a bacterial “ genetical barren market , ” in which “ each bacteria can be compared to a two - mode broadcasting place , using genes as information molecules . ” Genes “ are carried by a bacteria only when needed . . . as a human may carry sophisticated tools . ”26
The emerge detail of gene transfer are bewitching . In addition to change factor directly with other bacterium , bacteria have sensory receptor to receive genes from prophages , which Sonea and Mathieu call “ a unequalled character of biologic but inanimate building : a micro - robot for gene exchange . . . organized like an ultra - microscopic syringe with a vacuous container ( ‘ head ’ ) , and an ultra - microscopical acerate leaf ( ‘ hindquarters ’ ) . . . . This exclusively bacterial type of instrument for gene exchange among hold up beings may be carry across great distance by water , wind , animals , etc . ”
With so many mechanism for genetic exchange , “ all the reality ’s bacterium essentially have access to a single gene pool and hence to the adaptative mechanism of the entire bacteria kingdom , ” summarize Margulis and Sagan.27 Beyond genetical flexibility , “ bacteria apply advanced mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic electric cell biological science of ‘ higher ’ plants and animals to meet their own needs , ” write geneticist James Shapiro.28A raw savvy of bacteria is emerging ; far from being simplistic “ broken figure ” of life , they are becoming agnize as highly evolve , with elaborate systems for adaptability and resilience .
In any particular environment , some subset of the total bacterial factor pool is present . Interesting research recently identified a new class of enzyme , produce by a maritime bacterium , Zobellia galactanivorans , that can digest a polysaccharide ring porphyran , found in some seaweed ( let in nori ) , where the bacterium were found . Through genome analysis , investigators identifiedspecific genes in the bacterium that produce the enzyme . Then , seek gene - sequencing database , the investigators found the same genes in bacteria in the intestines of Nipponese universe , but not North Americans . “ This point that seaweeds with associated nautical bacterium may have been the path by which these novel [ enzymes ] were acquired in human bowel bacteria , ” reason the researchers , elaborating that “ link with non - sterile food for thought may be a worldwide factor in [ enzyme ] multifariousness in human gut microbes . ”29 What this means is that , to some degree , the germ on the solid food we eat determine our metabolic capability .
This finding raises huge question about both the past times and the future . “ It remains to be determined how , during human development , alteration in food production and preparedness such as agriculture and cooking have influenced the intestinal microbiota , ” notes a discussion in the journalNature . “ economic consumption of hyper - hygienic , mass - produced , extremely work on and calorie - obtuse foods is testing how speedily the microbiota of individual in industrialized countries can adapt while being deprive of the environmental reservoirs of microbic factor that admit version by lateral transfer . ”30
We need not continue to deprive ourselves!
If unsex , processed food is hunger our microbiota of genetic stimulation , alive - refinement food that are rich depositories of bacterial factor are part of our human cultural bequest , everywhere . Through dietary change , we can cosset ourselves , and eat up a change of bacteria - full-bodied living foods , precisely to build such genetic reservoirs inside our intestines , to heighten our metabolic capability , our immune affair , and many other regulatory physiological single-valued function .
Humans are not unique in having coevolved with bacterial symbionts . Plants also coevolved with and are hooked upon bacterial collaborator . A symbiotic relationship between photosynthesizing bacteria and other prokaryotes is thought by many to be the origin of the photosynthesizing chloroplasts in plant cells.31 The filth around works roots makes up what is get it on as the rhizosphere , where flora find out living through elaborate interaction with a miscellaneous “ soil intellectual nourishment connection . ”
Because we have evolved eating both plants and animals — and have coevolved with them — our coevolutionary history encompass not only the plants and beast themselves but also their microbic comrade . It is the ubiquitous presence of these life - forms , present from the very beginning but unseeable until the past few century , which results in the ferments , nearly all prehistorical , that we be intimate to eat up and drink . The ferments , in spontaneously occurring forms , foredate our consciousness of how to misrepresent precondition so as to channelise their exploitation . But our consciousness did train , and as part of that , so did the tempestuousness humanities . The ferment itself , and our ability to produce it , is as much a product of coevolution as the somebody , plant , yeast , or bacterium . Thus coevolution encompasses even culture .
Notes:3 . Lynn Margulis , “ Power to the Protoctists , ” in Margulis and Sagan ( 2007 ) , 30–31.4 . Lynn Margulis , “ Serial Endosymbiotic Theory ( SET ) and Composite Individuality : Transition from Bacterial to Eukaryotic Genomes , ” Microbiology Today 31:172 ( 2004 ) ; E. G. Nisbet and N. H. Sleep , “ The Habitat and Nature of Early Life , ” Nature 409:1089 ( 2001).5 . Margulis and Sagan ( 1986 ) , 131–132.6 . Sorin Sonea and Léo G. Mathieu , “ Evolution of the Genomic Systems of Prokaryotes and Its Momentous Consequences , ” International Microbiology 4:67–71 ( 2001).7 . Jian Xu and Jeffrey I. Gordon , “ Honor Thy Symbionts , ” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100(18):10452 ( 2003).8 . Fredrik Bäckhed et al . , “ Host - Bacterial Mutualism in the Human Intestine , ” Science 307:1915 ( 2005).9 . D. C. Savage , “ Microbial Ecology of the Gastrointestinal Tract , ” Annual Review of Microbiology 31:107–133 ( 1977).10 . Ruth E. Ley , Daniel A. Peterson , and Jeffrey I. Gordon , “ Ecological and Evolutionary Forces Shaping Microbial Diversity in the Human Intestine , ” Cell 124:837 ( 2006).11 . Steven R. Gill et al . , “ Metagenomic Analysis of the Human Distal Gut Microbiome , ” Science 312:1357 ( 2006).12 . Bäckhed et al . ( 2005)13 . M. J. Hill , “ Intestinal Flora and endogenic Vitamin Synthesis , ” European Journal of Cancer Prevention 6(Suppl . 1):S43 ( 1997).14 . S. C. Leahy et al . , “ Getting Better with Bifidobacteria , ” Journal of Applied Microbiology 98:1303 ( 2005).15 . Lora V. Hooper et al . , “ Molecular Analysis of Commensal Host – Microbial Relationships in the Intestine , ” Science 291:881 ( 2001).16 . Denise Kelly et al . , “ Commensal Gut Bacteria : Mechanisms of Immune Modulation , ” Trends in Immunology 26:326 ( 2005).17 . Elizabeth Grice et al . , “ topographic and Temporal Diversity of the Human Skin Microbiome , ” Science 324:1190 ( 2009).18 . Jørn A. Aas et al . , “ specify the Normal Bacterial Flora of the Oral Cavity , ” Journal of Clinical Microbiology 43:5721 ( 2005).19 . E. R. Boskey et al . , “ Origins of Vaginal Acidity : High D / L Lactate Ratio Is reproducible with Bacteria Being the Primary Source , ” Human Reproduction 16(9):1809 ( 2001).20 . Bäckhed et al . ( 2005)21 . Wilson ( 2005 ) , 375 . 22 . Joel Schroeter and Todd Klaenhammer , “ Genomics of Lactic Acid Bacteria , ” FEMS Microbiology Letters 292(1):1 ( 2008).23 . J. A. Shapiro , “ Bacteria Are little But Not Stupid : Cognition , Natural Genetic Engineering , and Socio - Bacteriology , ” study in the History and school of thought of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 38:807 ( 2007).24 . Sorin Sonea and Léo G. Mathieu , “ Evolution of the Genomic Systems of Prokaryotes and Its Momentous consequence , ” International Microbiology 4:67 ( 2001).25 . “ Interview with Lynn Margulis , ” Astrobiology Magazine ( October 9 , 2006 ) , online at http://astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News & le = article&sid=2108 , access December 5 , 2009.26 . Léo G. Mathieu and Sorin Sonea , “ A Powerful Bacterial World , ” Endeavour 19(3):112 ( 1995).27 . Margulis and Sagan ( 1986 ) , 16.28 . Shapiro , 807.29 . Jan - Hendrik Hehemann , “ Transfer of Carbohydrate - Active Enzymes from Marine Bacteria to JapaneseGut Microbiota , ” Nature 464:908 ( 2010).30 . Justin L. Sonnenburg , “ Genetic Pot Luck , ” Nature 464:837 ( 2010).31 . Margulis and Sagan ( 1986 ) , 133–136.32 . Dr. Ingham made this remark September 14 , 2009 , at a “ Soil Foodweb ” workshop the author attended .
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