In the latest research, Japanese scientists found a bacterium, detected in a limestone wall of a cave, which has a behavior multicellular, that is, a single life cycle in two phases (one liquid and one solid).
Call of HS-3, the bacterium has been isolated and its colony matures into a semi-closed sphere that contains clusters of cocobacillus, which are released when in contact with water. Learn more about it in this article.
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There is still much to discover about the emergence of multicellularity.
Darwinian theories still have strong significance when it comes to single-celled organisms.
Researchers found HS-3 in dripping cave water located on Kyushu Island, Japan, in 2008. In this research, they were initially looking for bacteria that accumulated lipids, but the colony highlighted on the agar plates were those of HS-3. To analyze the growth of the colony, microscopy was used, and then the reproduction and formation of a single layer, oriented like a liquid crystal, was noticeable.
Accumulation at the edge of the colony gives HS-3 the unique ability to maintain this two-dimensional liquid arrangement for a longer period of time because of the lower pressure. Scientists suspect that this is one of the characteristics that allows multicellularity. The transparency of the colonies can be explained by their formation, as the filamentous cells form a vortex.
After two days, the colony began to swell three-dimensionally, thus forming a semi-closed sphere with coccobacillus internally. After the fifth day, these inner cells reproduced, which triggered a multicellular takeover.
By placing water in the spheres, the scientists noticed the release of cocobacilli internal organs and the disruption of the filamentous cell part. By plating the released cells onto another agar plate, they found that they were capable of reproducing the original filamentous structure. In other words, there were two distinct phases of the life cycle.
Now, after 10 years, it was possible to confirm these observations of morphological changes in cells and colonies that occurred in a controlled and reversible manner, and thus confirm multicellularity.
This discovery surprised researchers with the many properties that HS-3 encompasses, such as multicellular behavior that had not been documented until then.