Algae cohabit with salamander embryos in their eggs — and inside their cells.T. LEVIN/PHOTOLIBRARY.COMPosted on 08/10/2010 12:27:42 AM PDT by neverdem
Scientists have stumbled across the first example of a photosynthetic organism living inside a vertebrate's cells. The discovery is a surprise because the adaptive immune systems of vertebrates generally destroy foreign biological material. In this case, however, a symbiotic alga seems to be surviving unchallenged — and might be giving its host a solar-powered metabolic boost.
Algae cohabit with salamander embryos in their eggs — and inside their cells.T. LEVIN/PHOTOLIBRARY.COMThe embryos of the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) have long been known to enjoy a mutualistic relationship with the single-celled alga Oophila amblystomatis. The salamanders' viridescent eggs are coloured by algae living in the jelly-like material that surrounds the embryo. The embryos produce nitrogen-rich waste that is useful to the algae, which, in turn, supply the developing embryos with extra oxygen. The algae clearly benefit their salamander hosts: Lynda Goff, a molecular marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, showed 30 years ago that salamander embryos lacking algae in their surrounding jelly are slower to hatch.
Ryan Kerney of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, has now found that these algae also live inside the embryo's cells. Such a close coexistence with a photosynthetic organism has previously been found only in invertebrates, such as corals. Kerney took long-exposure fluorescent images of pre-hatchling salamander embryos, and saw scattered dots in the unstained tissue — an indicator that it might contain chlorophyll. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images showed mitochondria in the salamander cells...
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One of Kerney's most curious discoveries suggests that the algae may be a maternal gift. He has found the same algae in the oviducts of adult female spotted salamanders, where the embryo-encompassing jelly sacs first form...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
The Amphibious Tribe has been notified and we are currently evaluating alternative methods.
[be sure and treat us kindly...you never know if you’re stepping on the tail of your future Supreme Ruler]....:)
Be kind to our web-footed FRiends...
Shibumi, love-love-love the new and current photos of our Sally! Miss Mander looks ready to rule the world and it’s so important in this gore-global-warming-age to be green!!!
{Don’t encourage her...really.} :)
Wasn’t that a song about *ducks*?
Alrighty, then.
First, we have to neutralize “them”.
Then, on to Global Conquest!
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