Life on Earth depends on the network of marine bacteria
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Nucleococcus The bacteria are so small that you have to line up in a thousand to match the thickness of the human thumbnail. The ocean is with them: Microorganisms are probably the most abundant photosynthetic organisms on Earth, and their oxygen produces a large part (10% to 20%). This means that life on Earth depends on about 300 billion (or 3×1027) Small cells struggle.
Biologists once regarded these creatures as isolated wanderers, wandering in an incredible vastness. but Nucleococcus Population may be more connected than anyone thinks. They may have conversations over a wide distance, not only in the ocean with information and nutritional envelopes, but also link what we think is a private interior space with the interior of other cells.
Not long ago, at the University of Cordoba in Spain, biologists took images of cyanobacteria under a microscope, saw a long, thin tube cell and grabbed the neighbor. Images make them sit up. They realized it wasn't fluorine.
“We realized that cyanobacteria are connected to each other,” said Maria del Carmen Munioz Marion, a microbiologist there. There is a connection between Nucleococcus Cells, and there is another bacteria called zygote, Live nearby often. In the image, the silver bridge connects three, four, and sometimes even 10 or more cells.
Muñoz-Marín has intuition about the identities of these mysterious structures. After a series of tests, she and her colleagues recently reported that the bridges were bacterial nanotubes. Bacterial nanotubes were observed in common laboratory bacteria only 14 years ago, a structure made from cell membranes that allow nutrients and resources to flow between two or more cells.
Over the past decade, these structures have been a source of fascination and controversy, as microbiologists struggle to understand what causes them to form, and the accuracy between these network cells. Images from Muñoz-Marín's laboratory mark the first time these structures have seen most of the Earth's photosynthesis in cyanobacteria.
They challenged the basic concepts about bacteria and asked the following questions: Nucleococcus Share with surrounding cells? Does it really make sense to think about it and other bacteria being single-celled?
Completely tubular
Many bacteria have an active social life. Some make hairline proteins grow in pili proteins connect two cells to allow them to exchange DNA. Some form dense plaques, called biofilms. Many small air vesicles that emit are called vesicles that contain DNA, RNA or other chemicals, such as information in a bottle, used to intercept any of their cells.
Muñoz-Marín and her colleagues, including José Manuel García-Fernández, a microbiologist at the University of Córdoba, and graduate student Elisa Angulo-Cánovas, are looking for Zoomooks Zoomoke, which are vesicles. Nucleococcus and CHENICO On the plate. It was a surprise when they saw that what they suspected was nanotubes.