The original version to This story appeared in Quanta Magazine.
Far from being single operators, most of them are single-cell Microbes In complex relationships. In the ocean, the soil, and your gut, they may fight and eat each other, exchanging DNAcompete for nutrients, or feed on byproducts. Sometimes they become more intimate: one cell She might slip inside another and make herself comfortable. If conditions are just right, she may stay and be welcomed, sparking a relationship that may last for generations — or billions of years. This phenomenon of one cell living inside another, called endosymbiosis, has fueled the evolution of complex life.
Examples of endosymbiosis are everywhere. Mitochondria, the energy factories in your cells, Bacteria were once living. Photosynthetic plants owe their sugars to sunlight on chloroplasts, which were also originally an independent organism. Many insects obtain essential nutrients Of the bacteria that live inside it. And researchers last year Discover “Nitroplast”, Endosmite, which helps some algae process nitrogen.
Much of life depends on endosymbiotic relationships, but scientists have struggled to understand how they occur. How does the inner cell escape digestion? How does it learn to reproduce within its host? What makes the random merging of two independent beings into a stable and lasting partnership?
Now, for the first time, researchers have watched the opening dance of this microscopic dance by Endosome induction in vitro. After injecting bacteria into the fungi—a process that requires creative problem solving (and a cycling pump)—the researchers were able to elicit cooperation without killing the bacteria or the host. Their observations provide a glimpse into the conditions that allow the same thing to happen in the microbial wild.
Even the cells adjusted to each other faster than expected. “To me, this means that organisms want to live together, and coexistence is the norm,” he said Vassilis Kokourisa mycologist who studies the cell biology of symbioses at Vu University in Amsterdam and was not involved in the new study. “This is big, big news for me and this world.”
Early attempts that fall short reveal that most cellular love affairs are unsuccessful. But by understanding how, why and when organisms accept, researchers can better understand key moments in evolution, and also develop artificial cells designed with endosmids with superpowers.
Cell wall penetration
Julia Forholta microbiologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in Switzerland, has long puzzled over the conditions of Endosymbiosis. Researchers in this field theorize that once bacteria infiltrate a host cell, the relationship between infection and harmony oscillates. If bacteria reproduce too quickly, they risk depleting the host’s resources and triggering an immune response, resulting in death of the guest, the host, or both. If it reproduces too slowly, it will not establish itself in the cell. Only in rare cases, they thought, do bacteria achieve a Goldilocks reproductive rate. Then, to become a true endosymbiont, it must sneak into its host’s reproductive cycle to circulate into the next generation. Finally, the host Genome They must eventually transform to accommodate the bacteria – allowing the two to develop as a unit.
“They became addicted to each other,” Forault said.
