For the first time in a billion years, two organisms have merged with each other

For the first time in at least a billion years, two organisms have come together to form a living organism.

This process, called primary endosymbiosis, has occurred only twice in Earth’s history. For the first time, this process was carried out by mitochondria, resulting in highly complex life. The second time this happened, plants came into being.

Now, an international team of scientists has discovered another type of algae commonly found in the ocean Bacteria have witnessed this evolutionary event between

“We think that when it first happened, it had very complex life,” says Tyler Cole, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who led one of the two latest studies to reveal this fact. gave existence to.’

Thanks to this event, ‘everything complex was born from the bacterial cell. It happened again with plant cells about a billion years ago and it (the process) gave us plants.’

In this process an alga swallows (alive) a bacterium and provides it with food, energy and protection, which in turn gives it functions it could not perform before, for example ‘fixing’ nitrogen from the air. ‘ Ability to do.

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The algae then adopted the bacteria as an internal organ, called an organelle. This organ becomes critical to the host’s ability to function.

Researchers from the United States and Japan who discovered these facts say that from this Upgrade will provide new insights into the processes of agriculture while also having the potential to fundamentally change agriculture.

“This system provides a new perspective on nitrogen use and may provide clues as to how organelles can be transferred to crops,” says Dr Cole.

Papers detailing the research have been published in the scientific journal Science and Cell.

These scientists belong to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Rhode Island, University of California, San Francisco, UC Santa Cruz, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Barcelona’s Institut de Ciencias del Mar, National Taiwan Ocean. University and from Kochi University in Japan.