Two lifeforms merge in once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event

https://newatlas.com/biology/life-merger-evolution-symbiosis-organelle/

by awb • 2 years ago

291 99 2 years ago

What's more likely, it happens once in a billion years and we happened to catch the exact specimens doing it? Or it happens a lot more often and we happened to catch an instance of it, but it's usually not as impactful or memorable as the mentioned instances?

Terrible sensationalist reporting.

qup• 2 years ago

Altogether, the team says this indicates UCYN-A is a full organelle, which is given the name of nitroplast. It appears that this began to evolve around 100 million years ago, which sounds like an incredibly long time but is a blink of an eye compared to mitochondria and chloroplasts.

It happened 100 million year ago, not in the petri dish at the lab.

colechristensen2• 2 years ago

It really has only happened a few times in the history of life, at least only a few times that survived. The title could use a little work though.

mkl3• 2 years ago

This particular instance started 100 million years ago, so it's not a right-place-right-moment situation.

There are only two known instances of symbiogenesis occurring, mitochondria and plastids (which includes chloroplasts), which justifies the once in a billion years description. Other instances are suspected. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis

There are lots of known endosymbionts, separate organisms living inside the body or cells of another, a prerequisite for symbiogenesis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiont

temp0826• 2 years ago

Maybe just bad article or I'm not fully getting it... So when this algae reproduces, do the offspring contain the new organelle? Article mentions something about dumping old DNA, but does it incorporate the DNA of the bacterium in the process? Not a biologist by any stretch

colechristensen2• 2 years ago

Yes. The organelle replicates with the host cell. As time goes on more and more of the bacterium’s DNA involved in separate survival outside the host just goes away as it further specializes in its task and leaves the rest to the host cell.

Chloroplasts and mitochondria had the same kind of beginning.

jessekv• 2 years ago

If I understand your question correctly, the cell devision figure directly addresses it (the answer is yes).

kkylin• 2 years ago

Primary sources:

[1] https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(24)00182-X.pdf

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38603509/

There's also a press release from LBL:

[3] https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2024/04/17/scientists-discover-fi...

[1] is open access.

wolverine876• 2 years ago

The Cell paper uses the heading "Summary" rather than "Abstract". When and where and why did that change? I don't see it in other papers and in other links for this paper. Maybe I don't read Cell enough?

akozak• 2 years ago

Nice. We'll have to check back in 10 million years to see how it went.

yosito3• 2 years ago

It happened 100 million years ago.

riwsky• 2 years ago

Witness the power of dependency injection

buitreVirtual• 2 years ago

:facepalm: :)

notfed• 2 years ago

git submodules

Brian_K_White• 2 years ago

But this is vendoring.

airstrike• 2 years ago

Arguably a better source was posted here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40101317 but no discussion there

koeng• 2 years ago

Hmmmm, I don't know if I buy their claim of primary endosymbiosis being so rare.

Almost all insects have heritable endosymbionts. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2013.00046

Ultimatt• 2 years ago

That's a different meaning of endosymbiosis at a more macro scale. This is cellular endosymbiosis. Having bacteria in your gut is not the same as having them be integrated at a molecular level into your cells as an organelle. You're scepticism of the media hype claim is correct though, there are other well known examples of endosymbiosis like this occurring, primary and secondary. Perhaps not primary with cyanobacteria but thats hardly some huge "scientific leap" in understanding or astonishment compared to some of the other stuff we know about.

Ironically you do see this kind of cellular endosymbiosis amongst the endosymbionts within insect guts with the most extreme example probably being Mixotricha paradoxa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixotricha_paradoxa

Hatena arenicola https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatena_arenicola is very similar to this new finding, but with an algae instead of a cyanobacteria so its a secondary endosymbiosis which if anything is actually more interesting and bizarre.

We also know from the genome of Smybiodinium that its undergone quite a few endosymbiotic capture events some secondary with algae but quite likely some primary with bacteria too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiodinium

borisk• 2 years ago

The first symbiotic event was a million times harder than the 2nd or the 3rd. The first time the host had the extremely hard task of dealing with any DNA and RNA produced by the guest during it's life and death. The host had to evolve stuff like a cell nucleaus and sex to live through it and alternative splicing to deal with the fact that all it's genes were damaged by selfish genetic elements that came from the guest. Integrating any later symbionts is still hard, but not nearly as hard.

It's possible that the first symbiosis that let to the origin of the eukaryotes is not a one in a billion years event, but one in a trillion or one in 10^20 years or ever rarer. That is it may be that in a billion planets with simple life forms only one "creates" complex life like animals. It can be the great filter that leads to the Fermi paradox.

ryanjamurphy2• 2 years ago

It can be the great filter that leads to the Fermi paradox.

I'm increasingly of a similar view — that the great filter is something we're already past, due to the incredible combinations of constraints that led to where we are today.

Another infinitesimal probability may be the development of abstract intelligence. The conditions that led to our brand of intelligence being an evolutionary advantage seem particularly unique: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK210002/

borissk• 2 years ago

Good one, I'll have a look. Are there any good videos on YouTube on the topic of origin of intelligence? I can't seem to find any.

AmIDev• 2 years ago

I feel there might be intelligent species out there without either the resources to develop technology or the ability to do so. Sharks could become smarter than us one day, but without thumbs they aren't going to succeed in overtaking the planet. Similarly, there could be a humanoid fish species under thick ice sheets of Europa, and they would never guess there is anything more than their "ocean" in the universe.

nneonneo• 2 years ago

Check out the algae in question: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braarudosphaera_bigelowii

It surrounds itself with twelve pentaliths, forming a perfect dodecahedron! This is such an incredibly cool organism.

aetherspawn• 2 years ago

Wow it looks like something out of stargate. Hard to believe that it’s natural and organic with such sharp edges.

zharknado• 2 years ago

In other words, it has a D12 exoskeleton.

euroderf• 2 years ago

Also cool-looking are Volvox.

Tagbert• 2 years ago

Diatoms generate a silicon dioxide skeleton and they look like little space probes.

https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/an-introductio...

https://www.mediastorehouse.com/science-photo-library/diatom...

alex_young• 2 years ago

Isn’t the placenta an example of this? https://whyy.org/segments/the-placenta-went-viral-and-protom...

yosito3• 2 years ago

I passed high school biology with a C, but I think the difference here is that two completely distinct independent organisms merged into one. The mammalian placenta seems to be more of an example of animals appropriating genetic code from viruses, which I suspect is something far more common in evolution.

mkl3• 2 years ago

No, it's derived from a virus, not an independent living organism. 8% of human DNA is derived from viruses that infected our ancestors and inserted themselves into our genome in order to replicate (which usually isn't passed on): https://theconversation.com/humans-are-8-virus-how-the-ancie...

mysterypie2• 2 years ago

The first occurred about 2.2 billion years ago, when an archaea swallowed a bacterium that became the mitochondria. The second time happened about 1.6 billion years ago, when cells absorbed cyanobacteria that became chloroplasts.

How was it possible that I could take 3 years of high school biology and not have heard that one lifeform absorbing another lifeform was responsible for these amazing new capabilities? We learned about mitochondria and chloroplasts, but in a very dry way. Primary education could be so much more interesting to kids with context like this.

stevenwoo• 2 years ago

Possibly you took biology before this was well known? I think they just have that mitochondria theory from the fossil record and DNA matching between current eukaryotic life.

mr_toad• 2 years ago

The idea (Symbiogenesis) dates back to the start of last century, and it was a common idea by the seventies. Curricula can move slowly, but I’d expect that it would have been taught in the eighties.

Then again it’s evolution, no way around it, so I can imagine some teachers and schools might omit the theory.

tyre• 2 years ago

In that same vein, take a read of: https://jsomers.net/i-should-have-loved-biology/

paulgb• 2 years ago

This is great, thanks for sharing it! I think it would be good fodder for HN discussion so submitted it to /new, hope you don’t mind.

IAmNotACellist• 2 years ago

I'm not sure either. Public school's primary purpose is to teach you just a few things:

1. The mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell)

2. You're made up of DNA and everything is atoms with electrons that zip around on little orbital paths

3. Stalactites vs. stalagmites

4. Crocodiles vs. alligators

5. The Holocaust was seriously bad

6. World history consisted of the US revolutionary war, the Civil war (fought over ending slavery), the Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Western Front in WWII (which began in 1941 and ended in 1945)

You were probably looking out the window for a few years when they continually announced that the mitochondria (POTC) was an absorbed bacterium.

beacon294• 2 years ago

Experiences vary. I learned the entire European enlightenment, french, college Calculus, Marching band, percussion, College chemistry, college English. In fact, once I got to college I took only chemistry courses (my degree), 1 calculus course, 2 years of German, and 3 philosophy courses. The german was bullshit requirement, frankly, and I should have taken french to simplify my life. But I was young and naive.

anal_reactor• 2 years ago

When you have 25 overstimulated kids and 45 minutes and an underpaid teacher, it's just impossible to make it interesting.

huytersd• 2 years ago

I mean there are so many amazing things like ATP generating machinery, how flagella move, ribosomal walking etc. You don’t have to post a cheap, lazy, cynical comment like this, there’s a lot to learn and only so much time to do it in.

TaylorAlexander• 2 years ago

Actually it’s possible (idk if he was underpaid) though I had a science teacher who is an extremely rare person. This is his website.

http://boomeria.com/

VS19992• 2 years ago

The teachers make more than I did for most of my life. Is it not possible for them to take personal responsibility without having to provide excuses? Most teachers do not want to be teachers and are just there because they couldn't make it in their own field or just prefer to do less skilled work.

matheusmoreira• 2 years ago

When bacteria die, their brethren will literally absorb the DNA of the fallen and obtain their abilities. Bacteria are the Mega Men of microbiology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_(genetics)

Oh you evolved a new antibiotic resistance mechanism? Now I've got your power.

keiferski2• 2 years ago

I’ve had the same experience. Biology in school was boring and static, whereas today I can get lost reading about obscure biological phenomena on Wikipedia.

throwaway64643• 2 years ago

You can hardly blame the school for that though. As others have said, it's not possible to cater to every student's interest and ability, so compromise has to be made and consequently things turn uninteresting.

Also, there's some confirmation bias and survival bias here. You won't read something that's boring and static to you, or you don't bother remembering reading/watching them. Whereas if something wakes your interest, you'll likely to explore further. At school, you were forced to learn things regardless of whether you might or might not like.

Also, 'you' of today is not the same 'you' back at school. You're now much more experienced and knowledgeable than before. So reading, understanding things are easier than at 15. It's like learning a new language, at first it is challenging because you know only a handful of words, but as you learn more, it gets easier. You know where things are in the big picture and they become interesting.

travisgriggs• 2 years ago

It wasn’t on the AP test.

(Put it there and you would have learned about it, because tests define curriculum—either immediately or downstream)

jrpt• 2 years ago

It was probably mentioned in the textbook and you just forgot. I just checked my textbook and it’s one of the first things they say when introducing mitochondria and chloroplasts.

SllX2• 2 years ago

I remember we learned this about mitochondria and chloroplasts in 10th Grade Biology back in my day, but I think if I quizzed anybody I went to high school with today it would be a coin flip as to whether they remembered that as part of the lesson. I mean, it's probably a coin flip on any piece of information from when we learned about organelles, or if they even remember the word "organelle". If you quizzed me, I couldn't have told you approximately when these events happened without the article in front of me even though I'm pretty sure we covered that too.

100% of my former schoolmates would probably remember the "powerhouse of the cell" meme though.

qwerty4561272• 2 years ago

I believe the word "organelle" is a part of passive vocabulary of many reasonably educated people. Non-biologists would probably fail to quickly come up with a single word to mean any specialized part of a biological cell but would probably understand when they meet this word used by someone else.

Affric• 2 years ago

When did you finish school?

kovacs_x• 2 years ago

trust me- there are lot of things that are barely mentioned in high school, also curriculum is not updated as often as the science uncovers something new and biology is moving forward with a break neck speed at the moment, imo.

Like, you couldn't learn about CRISPR editing before 2000.. because it was not there then. Now it's common knowledge.

kuhewa4• 2 years ago

Depends when you took it. The endosymbiotic origin theory has links being worked out well into the 2000s.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-origin-of-mito...

dredmorbius2• 2 years ago

Symbiogenesis of mitochondria substantially pre-dates the 2000s. It was first proposed over a century ago, 1905 and 1910 by Russian botanist Konstantin Mereschkowski, and substantiated with evidence by Lynn Margulis (a very substantial evolutionary biologist, also one of Carl Sagan's wives) in 1967.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiogenesis>

Mitochondria were sufficiently established in general awareness to be a plot point of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, being a concept which fascinated the character of Charles Wallace Murray, a young prodigy, in the stories. Though I don't recall if symbiogenesis is specifically referenced. The first story in the series was published in 1962.

ilkke• 2 years ago

2.2 billion years ago, and then again 1.6 billion years ago = once in a billion years event?

nextaccountic• 2 years ago

Did you learn in school that mitochondria had its own DNA? And that our mitochondria comes from the egg, so mitochondrial DNA always comes from our mother's mitochondria.

Or even played Parasite Eve [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_Eve_(video_game)#Plot

mysterypie2• 2 years ago

Actually, yes. I recall that the high school textbook and lecture did talk about mitochondria having its own DNA and that mitochondria traced the maternal tree. Although those are somewhat interesting, its origin as a separate lifeform is WAY more interesting.

j_bum• 2 years ago

If this is exciting to you, I’d recommend “Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life” by Nick Lane [0].

It’s a fascinating and captivating (albeit dense) exploration into the concept that mitochondria were central to the success of eukaryotic life. I read it in a book club during my PhD.

[0] https://nick-lane.net/books/power-sex-suicide-mitochondria-m...

yosito3• 2 years ago

The headline makes it sound like this happened last week, but it actually happened 100 million years ago, and we're just now discovering it.

Zenzero• 2 years ago

It could have also happened last week.

Razengan• 2 years ago

wow and I just bookmarked this in the News folder

neuronic• 2 years ago

It's still news to you...

biorach• 2 years ago

100 million years ago is pretty much the equivalent of last week on an evolutionary timescale.

renonce• 2 years ago

Only if you are a 45-week old baby

Mr_Minderbinder• 2 years ago

Perhaps 100,000 years is a better analogy for a week in evolution. A lot can happen in 100 million years of evolution. The boreoeutherian ancestor, that is the ancestor of all humans, rodents, carnivores, cetaceans and more was alive roughly that many years ago.

OJFord• 2 years ago

Ah, thank you, I was suspicious thinking what are the chances they would just happen to be watching something microscopic when such a rare thing occurs...

So, since the article didn't mention it, presumably nothing interesting happened as a result? Yet?

tga_d• 2 years ago

The article specifically says it likely happened 100 million years ago and that the interesting thing is an organelle that fixes nitrogen. That is a big deal, on the order of photosynthesis. A lack of nitrogen-fixing organisms is an extremely common cause of desertification; e.g., it's why industrial farming requires fertilizer, and a major reason why once a forest is clear-cut you'll only get one more generation of trees.

Sharlin• 2 years ago

Eh, it's not like it was an instantaneous event. If the symbiotic relationship first began developing a hundred million years ago, it may have taken the bacteria all this time to get to the point where they're now – organelles that are now fully dependent on the host algae cell.

hgo2• 2 years ago

Ah, that's a relief. It sounded incredibly scary if it was some new type of species just now. I would imagine that it would overwhelm our ecosystems wreaking havoc until a new balance is eventually found with new winners and new types of species dominating our environment.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe]

More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40011438

lamontcg2• 2 years ago

Seems the N2-fixation is limited by CO2-fixation. Be a bit weird if it wasn't and they sucked all the N2 out of the atmosphere. Atmosphere would get a bit spicy and flammable.

adastra222• 2 years ago

Why? Partial pressures are what matters. If N2 was sucked out of the atmosphere, not much would change.

lamontcg2• 2 years ago

https://space.stackexchange.com/a/5694/14420

kaba0• 2 years ago

Favor composition over inheritance.

sethammons• 2 years ago

It appears that this began to evolve around 100 million years ago, which sounds like an incredibly long time but is a blink of an eye compared to mitochondria and chloroplasts.

From the title, I assumed they saw the genius of this extremely rare event. Very new in terms of life on Earth, but not something that first happened this year.

methuselah_in• 2 years ago

Well not far when plastic will be part of your blood stream and new organisms will eat it as well

hgo2• 2 years ago

Here's an interesting video about a type of Maize that can also create its own "bound" Nitrogen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyd-kC6IUw

bithead• 2 years ago

If other plants get in to this ability it could revolutionize agriculture. Also, will tank the fertilizer industry.

abrookewood• 2 years ago

Who new science could be so humorous: "Imagine if kidneys were actually little animals running around, and humans had to manually filter their blood through a dialysis machine. Then one day some guy somehow gets one of these kidney critters stuck... Internally (who are we to judge how?)"

Two lifeforms merge in once-in-a-billion-years evolutionary event

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