One bacterium that can be seen with the naked eye has been discovered – science – life

According to Science, despite the fact that, by definition, microbes are supposed to be so small that they can only be seen with a microscope, newly described bacteria living in the mangroves of the Caribbean escape this rule: the cell is visible to the naked eye, It grows up to 2 cm and is 5,000 times larger than many other microbes.

These giant bacteria also contain a huge genome that does not float freely inside the cell as in other bacteria.but surrounded by a membrane, a characteristic of more complex cells, such as those in the human body.

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According to the American Journal, the bacteria, baptized in the name of The wonderful theomargariteIt was revealed in an initial version published online Last week larger than fruit flies and nematodes, common laboratory organisms that some scientists sometimes infect with much smaller bacteria in research.

According to experts, the newly discovered inaccurate microbe blurs the line between prokaryotes, a group that includes bacteria and single-celled microbes called archaea and eukaryotes, which includes everything from yeast to most multicellular life forms.

bacteria It was first seen about 10 years ago Olivier Gros, a marine biologist at the University of the French Antilles, Pointe-a-Pitre. The strange organism grew as thin threads on the surface of the decaying mangrove leaves in a local swamp. Five years after he and his colleagues realized that organisms were in fact bacteria, they didn’t appreciate how special they were until Gross graduate student Jean-Marie Volland began working on their characterization.

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The group used a variety of microscopy and staining methods to verify that the mangrove filaments were every single cell. Furthermore, they realized that the cell contains two membrane sacs, one of which contains all the DNA. Volland calls this cyst an organelle, and for some experts he has consulted with science, it indicates that the two branches of life are not as different as previously thought. The other bag, which is assumed to be filled with water, occupies 73% of its total volume.

Another surprising feature of particular bacteria is their genetic information. When researchers at the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute sequenced the DNA inside, they found that the genome was massive, containing 11 million bases of about 11,000 clearly distinguishable genes. Bacterial genomes typically average about 4 million bases and about 3,900 genes.

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