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Prochlorococcus The bacteria are so small that you have to queue about one thousand of them to fit the thickness of human reduction. Seethes ocean with them: Bacteria are likely The richest Photosynthesis on the planet and they produce a significant part, 10 % to 20 % of the oxygen of the atmosphere. That means life on Earth depends on about 3 million octures (or 3 × 1027) Small individual cells are lost.
Biologists have thought of these creatures as isolated, excited in an unmistakable broadness. But Prochlorococcus The population can be connected more than anyone can imagine. They may be organizing conversations at a wide distance, not only filling the ocean with information and nutrients, but also linking what we think is a private, internal space of They with the interior of other cells.
At the University of Westba, not long ago, biologists took pictures of blue bacteria under a microscope who saw a cell that had grown a long, thin tube and grabbed the neighbors. Images make them sit up. It realized that this was not a fluke.
We realized that blue bacteria were connected to each other, he said María del Carmen Muñoz-MarinA germist there. There is a link between Prochlorococcus cells, and other bacteria, called Synechococcus, Which often lives nearby. In images, the silver bridges link three and four and sometimes 10 cells or more.
Muñoz-Marin had a hunch of the identity of these mysterious structures. After one check, she and her colleagues Recently reported That these bridges are bacterial nanotubes. The first time observed in a common laboratory bacteria just 14 years ago, bacterial nanotroes were structures made from cell membranes that allow nutrients and resources to flow between two or more subtle. cells.
The structures have been A source of mesmerizing and controversy Over the past decade, because germs have worked to understand what makes them form and accurately, exactly what among the cells connected to this network. The images from Muñoz-Marín's laboratory marked for the first time these structures were seen in blue bacteria responsible for many photosynthesis processes of the earth.
They challenge the basic ideas about bacteria, ask questions such as: Prochlorococcus Share with the cells around it? And it really makes sense when thinking about it, and other bacteria, like a single cell?
Completely tubular
Many bacteria have Positive social life. Some produce protein growth, protein growth links two cells to allow them to exchange DNA. Some forms of dense arrays together, called biological membrane. And many emit Small bubbles are called blisters It contains DNA, RNA or other chemicals, such as messages in one bottle for any cell that occurs to block them.
Those were the bags that Muñoz-Mañoz-Marín and Colleas, including Jose Manuel García-Fernandez, a geometric micro-micro-college withrdoba, and graduates. Elisa Angulo-Mátovasare looking when they enlarge Prochlorococcus And Synechococcus In a dish. When they see what they suspect is a nanotube, it is a surprise.