Original version of This story Appears in Quanta Magazine.
Prochlorococcus The bacteria are so small that about 1,000 people need to be lined up to the thickness of the human thumbnail. The ocean is seen with them: microorganisms are likely The most abundant A significant portion (10-20%) of the oxygen in the atmosphere is produced on Earth. This means that life on Earth depends on about 3 Orion (or 3×10)27) Small individual cells that are shaking badly.
Biologists once thought of these creatures as isolated wanderers, floating in immeasurable vastness. but, Prochlorococcus Population may be more connected than everyone would have imagined. They could be talking over a wide distance, filling the ocean with envelopes of information and nutrients, as well as having their inner space along with other cellular interiors that we had thought of. It is linked to.
At the University of Cordoba in Spain, some time ago, a biologist snapping images of cyanobacteria under a microscope saw cells growing long, thin tubes and grabbing their neighbors. The image made them sit. I gave them that this was not a fluke.
“I noticed that cyanobacteria are connected to each other,” he said. Maria del Carmen Munos Marinemicrobiologist. There was a link between Prochlorococcus With cells, and another bacteria called another bacteria Synechococcus, They often live nearby. In the image, the silver bridge linked 3, 4, and sometimes 10 or more cells.
Munoz Marin had a premonition about the identity of these mystical structures. After a series of tests, she and her colleagues Recently reported These bridges must be bacterial nanotubes. First observed in common laboratory bacteria just 14 years ago, bacterial nanotubes are structures made of cell membranes that allow nutrients and resources to flow between two or more cells.
There is a structure The source of appeal and controversy For the past decade, microbiologists have worked to understand what they form and what exactly moves these networked cells. Images from Muñoz-MarÃn’s lab marked when these structures were first seen in cyanobacteria, where many of the Earth’s photosynthesis was responsible for many.
They challenge basic ideas about bacteria and raise questions such as: Prochlorococcus Would you like to share it with the cells around it? And does it really make sense to think about it?
Completely tubular
There are many bacteria A proactive social life. Some create capillary, ocetic growth of proteins that allow two cells to link and exchange DNA. Together, form a dense plaque Biofilm. And many people will release it Small bubbles known as vesicles It contains DNA, RNA, or other chemicals.
Munoz Marin, including University of Cordoba microbiologist Jose Manuel Garcia Fernandez, and her colleagues, were vesicles, including graduate students. Elisa Angulo-CánovasI was looking for them when they were zooming in. Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus On a plate. It was a surprise when they thought it was the nanotubes that they saw suspect.
