Original version of This story Appeared in Quanta Magazine。
Most single -cell microorganisms are far from solo pelators, have a complicated relationship. In the sea, soil, and your intestines, they may fight and eat each other. Sometimes it becomes even closer. A cell can slip into another cell and become comfortable. If the conditions are just right, it may be welcomed by staying, causing a relationship that can continue for generations. This phenomenon of cells living in another cell called endometriosis promoted the evolution of complex life.
There are examples of endometriosis everywhere. Mitochondria, your cell energy factory, It was once a free living bacterium。 Photosynthesis plants are spurred on the sun, which was originally an independent creature. Many insects get essential nutrients From the bacteria living in it。 And last year’s researcher I found “Nitoprust”. Endometrium that is useful for some algae to treat nitrogen.
Many of the lives depend on endosive relationships, but scientists have a hard time understanding how they will happen. How do internalized cells avoid digestion? How do you learn to reproduce within the host? What is the reason for the random merger of two independent creatures a stable and permanent partnership?
For the first time, researchers have seen the choreography of this microscopic dance. Guidance of endometriosis in the lab。 After injecting bacteria into a fungus, researchers, which require creative problem solving (and bicycle pumps), were able to cooperate without killing bacteria or hosts. Their observations can be glimpsed on conditions that enable the same thing in microorganisms.
The cell was adjusted to each other faster than expected. “For me, this means that living things really want to live together, and symbiosis is standard.” Vasilis kokkorisWhich fungian who studies symbiotic cell biology at VU University in Amsterdam and is not involved in new research. “So it’s a big news for me and for this world.”
The shortage of early attempts revealed that most mobile phones have failed. However, how the creatures are, and when, and when, and when, and the researchers can understand the important moment of evolving, and have potentially super -powerful internal cohesive. You can develop synthetic cells that operate living things.
Cell wall breakthrough
Julia WolholtSwiss Federal University of Technology, Zurich, a microorganicist for long -term, has long been confused by the situation of endometriosis. On -site researchers theorized that when bacteria sneaked into the host cells, the relationship between infection and harmony was wobbly. If bacteria are reproduced too fast, there is a risk of depleting the host resources and causing an immune response, and both guests, hosts, or both die. If you reproduce it slowly, you will not establish yourself. In rare cases, bacteria thought they would achieve the gorde lock reproductive speed. Second, in order to become a true endometrium, you must infiltrate the host’s reproductive cycle and catch a vehicle for the next generation. Finally, the host’s genome needs to be mutated and contain bacteria. This allows two evolve as a unit.
“They are hooked on each other,” said Volholt.
