Original version Of This story appeared in Quanta magazine,
Proclorococcus Bacteria are so small that you have to line up around one thousand of them to match the thickness of human thumbnail. The ocean sits with them: there is a possibility of germs most abundant Pnial synthetic creatures on the planet, and they make an important part – 10 percent to 20 percent to 20 percent – of oxygen of the atmosphere. This means that life on Earth depends about 3 Ashtak (or 3 × 1027) Small individual cells from far away.
Once biologists used to wander these organisms as isolated, in a bottomless vastness. But Proclorococcus The population can be more and more attached, which could have imagined someone. They can interact extensively, not only the ocean can fill the ocean with information and nutrient envelopes, but which we thought that their personal, internal spaces can also be combined with the interiors of other cells. .
At the University of Cordoba in Spain, not long ago, the biologist saw a cell, plucking images of cyanobacteria under a microscope that grabbed a long, thin tube and his neighbor. The image made him sit. It was on them that it was not a temporary.
“We realized that cyanobacteria were connected to each other,” Maria del Carmen Munose-MarinA microbiologist there. There were relations between Proclorococcus Cells, and also with another bacterium, is called Sinchococcus, Which is often nearby. In images, silver bridges added three, four and sometimes 10 or more cells.
Munose-Marin had a hump about the identity of these mysterious structures. After the battery of tests, he and his colleagues Recently reported These bridges are Nanotubes of bacteria. The first time was seen in a normal lab bacterium only 14 years ago, bacterial nanotube cell membranes are structures that allow nutrients and resources to flow between two or more cells.
There are structures A source of attraction and controversy In the last decade, as the microbiologist has worked to understand what they cause to make them and, in fact, travels between these network cells. Munose-Marin's labs images have first marked these structures, which have been seen in cyanobacteria responsible for the photosynthesis of the Earth.
They challenge fundamental ideas about bacteria, as they raise questions: how much it does Proclorococcus Share with cells around it? And does it really make sense to think about it, and other bacteria, as single-cells?
Full tubular
There are many bacteria Active social lifeSome pilgrimage develops hairylic development of proteins that add two cells to allow them to exchange DNA. Some are known as densely plated pieces, BiofilmsAnd many emitted Small bubbles are known as vesicles It contains DNA, RNA or other chemicals, such as the message in a bottle to intercept whatever is cell.
It was a vesicle that Munoz-Marin and his colleagues, including Jose manual Garcia-Fernandez, who were a microbiologist and graduate student at the University of Kordoba Elisa Angulo-KonovaAs they were looking for zoom in Proclorococcus And Cincococcus In a dish. It was a surprise when he saw what he doubted that Nanotubes were.