The original version from This story appeared in How much magazine.
Prochlorcoccus Bacteria are so small that they would have to set up around a thousand of them in order to correspond to the thickness of a human miniature image. The ocean sees with them: the microbes are likely most frequently Photosynthetic organism on the planet and they create a significant part of 10 to 20 percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere. This means that life on earth depends on around 3 octillions (or 3 × 1027) Tiny individual cells that plunge.
Biologists once regarded these organisms as isolated hikers who drift in an unfathomable width. But the Prochlorcoccus The population can be more connected to each other than everyone could have imagined. They may have discussions over long distances and not only fill the ocean with information and nutrients, but also combine what we thought for their private, inner rooms with the interiors of other cells.
At the University of Córdoba in Spain, biologists saw pictures of the cyanobacteria under a microscope, a cell that had grown a long, thin tube and had taken its neighbors. The picture let her sit down. They realized that this was no coincidence.
“We found that the cyanobacteria were connected,” said, said María del Carmen Muñoz-MarínA microbiologist there. There were connections between Prochlorcoccus Cells and also with a different bacterium, called Synechococcus, Which often lives nearby. Silver bridges linked in the pictures three, four and sometimes 10 or more cells.
Muñoz-Marín had a guess on the identity of these mysterious structures. After a number of tests and your colleagues recently reported that these bridges are bacterial nanor tubes. Bacterial nanor tubes, which were only observed in a common laboratorykeeper 14 years ago, are structures made of cell membrane that enable nutrients and resources to flow between two or more cells.
The structures were A source of fascination and controversy In the past ten years, microbiologists have worked to understand what they form and what exactly moves between these networked cells. The pictures from Muñoz-Marín’s laboratory marked the first time that these structures were seen in the cyanobacteria that are responsible for so much of the earth’s photosynthesis.
They challenge basic ideas about bacteria and raise questions such as: B. how much costs Prochlorcoccus Share around them with the cells? And does it really make sense to think about it and other bacteria that just have a cell?
Totally tubular
Many bacteria have active social life. Some make Pili, hairy makes protein that link two cells so that they can replace DNA. Some form dense plaques together, known as Biofilms. And many emit Tiny bubbles that are known as vesicles This contains DNA, RNA or other chemicals, such as messages in a bottle for the cell that they intercept.
It is the vesicles, the Muñoz-Mañoz-Marín and their recordings, including the José Manuel García Fernandez, micrologist at the University of Córdoba and student for doctoral students. Elisa Angulo-Cánovassearched for zooming Prochlorcoccus And Synechococcal in a dish. When they saw what they suspected, nanor tubes were a surprise.
