In this blog post, we will introduce how bacteria came to produce vitamin B12 and the biotechnology that made this process possible.
Sewage treatment plants bring to mind dirt and foul odors, while vitamin supplements are associated with good health. Therefore, it is difficult to see any connection between sewage treatment plants and vitamin supplements. The two are so different that it is hard to believe that bacteria living in sewage treatment plants are used to make vitamins. Surprisingly, however, all companies use only bacteria to produce vitamin B12. How is this possible? We are particularly skeptical because we have learned that bacteria make toxic substances that make people sick.
Vitamin B12 plays an important role in our health. It is essential for maintaining the nervous system and for DNA synthesis and red blood cell formation. Therefore, vitamin B12 deficiency can cause various health problems such as anemia, nerve damage, fatigue, and memory loss. Understanding how bacteria can produce such an important vitamin is even more interesting.
So why did pharmaceutical companies start using bacteria to make vitamins? The reason is clear. It is too expensive to synthesize vitamin B12 directly in a laboratory. Vitamin B12 has a complex molecular structure and requires many steps in the synthesis process. These economic problems led pharmaceutical companies to use bacteria to manufacture vitamins.
Obtaining vitamin B12 from bacteria is a simple yet difficult task. If bacteria could produce only vitamin B12 without producing toxic substances, there would be no problem. However, bacteria are living organisms, not robots, so it is difficult to make them produce only what we want. Biotechnologists have solved this problem in a simple way.
To understand how biotechnologists solved this problem, we first need to understand the phenomena that occur in our bodies and in small bacteria. The instructions for the various biological phenomena that occur automatically in our bodies are stored in a huge encyclopedia called DNA, encoded in four symbols. For example, when protein needs to be produced, only the instructions for protein synthesis are copied from the DNA. This copy is called RNA. The RNA is decoded by ribosomes, which are protein synthesis devices within cells, and protein is produced for use in our bodies. Bacteria that can produce vitamin B12 also store information on how to produce toxic substances and how to produce vitamin B12.
What would happen if the part of the instructions that produces toxic substances were removed? The bacteria would no longer be able to produce toxic substances. Based on this, biotechnologists first cut out this part of the DNA to prevent the bacteria from producing toxic substances.
Would this allow us to mass-produce vitamins as much as we want? The answer is no. All living organisms are designed to produce only the amount of substances they need. In other words, even if we prevent the bacteria from producing toxic substances and build a factory, the factory owner would soon have to close the factory because there would be almost no vitamin B12 to sell.
If they want to make more products, they will have to install more production equipment and hire more employees. Biotechnologists manipulate the employment information in the bacteria’s DNA so that ten people can work in a bacteria factory that originally only needed one employee. As a result, the factory produces a lot of vitamin B12, and the surplus is stored.
The final task of biotechnologists is to explain how bacteria take in nutrients. They noticed that even on a 10-lane highway, if the entrance is narrow, the overall speed of traffic is very slow. Biotechnologists increase the rate at which bacteria absorb nutrients, which has the following effects. When bacteria consume a lot of nutrients, their bodies grow rapidly and cell division accelerates. As a result, the number of factories producing vitamins will increase exponentially, and each factory will be supplied with sufficient raw materials, leading to an increase in vitamin production.
The biotechnology used in this process is an important part of biotechnology and has various applications in medicine, agriculture, and the environment. For example, gene editing technology is used to increase crop yields and remove toxic substances from polluted environments. In this way, biotechnology is making a significant contribution to improving our lives.
Through this process, biotechnologists transform bacteria into vitamin production factories to obtain the vitamins we need. Modifying DNA to mass-produce desired substances is one of the tasks of biotechnologists. Through future research and development, we will be able to produce more health supplements and medicines in a more efficient and economical way. Biotechnology is an important field of science that enriches our lives and promises a healthy future.
