According to Science, a new bacterium has been discovered in the Caribbean, which is one of the largest known “microorganisms”. It reaches 2 cm in length and represents a previously unknown developmental stage in complex cell development.
Newly discovered bacteria have stunned biologists
Bacteria have features of both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, which are the two types of cells in living things. Prokaryotes have a genome in the form of DNA floating in the cell, while eukaryotes have DNA located in the cell nucleus. This type of bacteria has been encountered before, but scientists thought it was an unusual combination of two different cells. Thiomargarita magnifica It has two membrane structures, with DNA embedded in one of them. The code contains 11 million base pairs out of 11 thousand. gene, which is almost three times more than standard bacteria. The massive genome does not float freely in the cell, but is enclosed in a membrane, which is an inventive feature of more complex cells. The genome of bacteria is very large because there are more than 500,000 copies of the same stretches of DNA.
Bacteria stunned Victor Nesette, a scientist at the University of California, San Diego. He said the discovery is fascinating and “opens your eyes” to the complex world of nature. According to Kazuhiro Takemoto, a biologist at the Kyushu Institute of Technology, microorganisms may be the “missing link in complex cell evolution.” Scientists believe that the bacteria, if not damaged, could theoretically grow even further.
“Often, bacteria are considered ‘underdeveloped’ small, simple life forms – so-called ‘protein sacs,'” adds Chris Greening, a microbiologist at Monash University in Clayton. “This is much further from the truth.”
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