Japan has cultivated mysterious single-celled microorganisms

BEIJING, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- After a decade of exploration, a team of Japanese scientists has finally used deep-sea sediments to develop a mysterious single-celled microorganism, which the team then documented, according to a new study published in the British journal Nature. This unusual microbe will help humanity reveal the origins of complex nuclear organisms.
a single-celled pro-nuclear biome, the newly discovered Asgard bacteria, believed to be the ancestors of more complex egos. But until now, our understanding of Asgard paleontology has been limited to DNA studies, which show the presence of ethyrocyte-like genes.
this time, the Japanese Marine Research and Development Agency scientist Yoshihiro Ishiguro, as well as the Japanese Institute of Industrial Technology, scientist Yan You and others, after a decade of efforts to isolate and cultivate an Asgard bacteria. The team collected silt from deep in the peak ridge off the coast of Japan and then cultured the samples in a special bioreactive reactor filled with methane.
2000 days later, they isolated a mixture containing a variety of microorganisms and, over the years, gained live culture of Asgard bacteria. They named the microbe "Prometheoarchaeum syntrophicum", which derives from the Greek mythological god Prometheus.
studies have shown that "P.syntrophicum" grows very slowly, doubling every 14-25 days. Further analysis revealed that the genome of "P.syntrophicum" contained a high proportion of celebular cell-like genes, confirming previous DNA analysis. These tiny spherical cells usually congregeal and grow on other microbial partners. They appear to lack inocellular cellular structures owned by complex nuclear organisms, but the outer surface has long bulges that often branch.
the researchers speculated that the bulge may have captured passing bacteria, which were then internalized and eventually evolved into mitochondrials. This is likely to lay the foundation for the evolution of the nucleo- and biological organisms.