Original version With this story appeared in Quanta magazine.
Most of the unicellular microorganisms are not independent operators, but remain in convoluted compounds. In the ocean, soil and intestines, they can fight and eat, replace DNA, compete with nutrients or feed on the side products of others. Sometimes they become even more intimate: one cell can slip into the other and feel comfortable. If the conditions are appropriate, the relationship may remain and be accepted with joy, creating a relationship that can last for generations – or billions of years. The phenomenon in which one cell lives inside the other, called endosymbiosis, drives the evolution of a convoluted life.
Examples of endosymbiosis are everywhere. Mitochondria, energy factory in your cells, They were once free -living bacteria. Photosynthetic plants owe their sugars resulting from the sun to the chloroplast, which was originally also an independent organism. Many insects receive the necessary nutrients from the bacteria that live in them. And last year’s researchers discovered “Nitroplast”, Endosymbonta, which helps some algae process nitrogen.
Such a immense part of life is based on endosymbiotic relationships, but it is tough for scientists to understand how they occur. How does an internalized cell avoid digestion? How does he learn to reproduce in the host’s body? What makes the accidental combination of two independent organisms create a stable, indefinite partnership?
Now researchers have seen the initial choreography of this microscopic dance by for the first time causing endosymbiosis in the laboratory. After injecting the bacteria into the fungus – which required artistic problem solving (and the utilize of a bicycle pump) – scientists managed to establish cooperation without killing bacteria or the host. Their observations give insight into conditions that allow the same in the microbiological environment.
The cells adapted to each other faster than expected. “For me, this means that organisms really want to live together and symbiosis is the norm,” she said Vasily KokkorisThe mycolog who studies the cellular biology of symbiosis at the University of VU in Amsterdam and was not involved in a novel study. “This is a great, great news for me and for this world.”
Early attempts, which were unsuccessful, show that most of the cellular affairs are unsuccessful. However, understanding how, why and when organisms accept endosymbionts, researchers can better understand the key moments of evolution, as well as potentially develop synthetic cells designed with the utilize of Endosymbionts with superpime.
A breakthrough in the cell wall
Julia WorholtA microbiologist from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland has long been thinking about the circumstances of endosymbiosis. Researchers in this field put the theory that when the bacterium gets into the host cell, the relationship between infection and harmony shakes. If the bacterium reproduces too quickly, there is a risk of exhausting the resources of the host and causing an immune response, which may result in the death of a guest, host or both. If he reproduces too slowly, he will not settle down in the cell. They believed that only in occasional cases the bacterium achieves a golden -haired reproduction coefficient. Then, to become a real endosymbonta, it must penetrate the reproductive cycle of the host to ensure a trip to the next generation. Finally, the host’s genome must finally mutate to accommodate the bacterium, which will allow them to evolution as an individual.
“They get addicted to each other,” said Vorholt.