4 ms·

Based on the tone of the researchers giving comments on the results, this feels like a surprisingly uncontroversial discovery given how exciting it would appear

Based on the tone of the researchers giving comments on the results, this feels like a surprisingly uncontroversial discovery given how exciting it would appear to be, as if biologists with expertise in the domain were considering it to be possible but didn't have any examples of it until now. Is that a correct interpretation?

koeng 7y ago
Yep, that's correct. There are a lot of things that biologists tend to believe are out there, but are waiting for examples, which makes these kinds of discoveries very pleasant surprises. For example, it could kinda be assumed that we would find a phage that contained a CRISPR, and that turned out to be correct (it uses it to target other phages that infect the same host cell). Another fun example is a reverse-transcription based replicating plasmid found in a fungal mitochondria. Theoretically it was possible, but that madlad did it. A phage that I assume exists is one that replicates via reverse-transcription, but that hasn't been found yet. I hope they find it soon!
- ampdepolymerase 7y ago
  Not to mention this sort of discoveries are so common now that it would be lucky to get a mention in top journals like Nature and Science at all. The incentives for biology is still deeply traditional; new, interesting, or novel discoveries do not necessarily get well rewarded at all. The biology research and development system strongly favors academia politics and close sourced large corporations.
- itsgrimetime 7y ago
  do you have links to reading about these? I'm curious but can't figure out search terms to find them myself
  - koeng 7y ago
    Sorry for late response, but here is for the reverse transcriptase plasmid - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VS_ribozyme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VS_ribozyme Here's for phage CRISPR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2007-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2007-4
ak217 7y ago
The authors characterized an obligate parasite that lost its mitochondria and steals energy from the host instead. While this is technically the first animal to be found to lose its mitochondria, it's not the first eukaryote. They didn't find a novel eukaryotic energy system. There are many parasites that lose essential cellular machinery because the host provides it, this is just a relatively complex one.
- pvaldes 7y ago
  The group is still poorly known and giving surprise after surprise in the last decades. Complex life cycle with two totally different kind of spores. Some were wrongly chategorised as two different species, other classified as animals are now known to be fungus (and two different lineages of very distant related fungus noneless)... Really misunderstood group for most of the modern scientific period. The idea that there was not one extant parasitic "jellyfish" [1] , but thousands of a new branch of parasitic cnidarians was revolucionary at 90's. [1] Technically they are not Scyphozoa, Cubozoa or Hydrozoa, so they are not jellyfishes (neither corals).
dnautics 7y ago
Ok so to give you a bit of perspective, I didn't click through, and I thought, oh it's probably a parasite because parasites lose their mitochondria. Then I clicked through. I wasn't even a systems biologist, but a chemist/biochemist that got giardia once in grad school.
pvaldes 7y ago
I had studied related species before, is a very strange group and economically surprisingly relevant. Is not clear if they looking at the plasmid or at the spore. Spores are made to endure harsh environments, "aren't totally alive" in a methabolic sense of the term, and could have created different methods to breath. Cnidarians are really old. From the article is possible that we could have a second lineage to mitocondrial origin, or that the animal have lost part of their DNA to simplify and adapt to parasitic life. Evolving to pack as many copies of itself as possible with minimum space and limited resources, and that would be really interesting, yes.
TallGuyShort 7y ago
I think the key is this: >> Some microbes that don't breathe oxygen breathe hydrogen instead, but there's no evidence Henneguya does this. Some parasitic microbes don't breathe themselves, but steal energy molecules called ATP from their hosts. "We believe this is what our parasite is doing," Huchon said. This isn't an entirely novel thing they've discovered. Similar animal-like things have been studied, but this is the first time it's actually animal cells being observed with the behavior. It's something we've seen before, but only in even lower forms of life. It's cool and new interesting, but it's not paradigm-breaking.

koeng 7y ago

Yep, that's correct. There are a lot of things that biologists tend to believe are out there, but are waiting for examples, which makes these kinds of discoveries very pleasant surprises. For example, it could kinda be assumed that we would find a phage that contained a CRISPR, and that turned out to be correct (it uses it to target other phages that infect the same host cell). Another fun example is a reverse-transcription based replicating plasmid found in a fungal mitochondria. Theoretically it was possible, but that madlad did it. A phage that I assume exists is one that replicates via reverse-transcription, but that hasn't been found yet. I hope they find it soon!

ampdepolymerase 7y ago
Not to mention this sort of discoveries are so common now that it would be lucky to get a mention in top journals like Nature and Science at all. The incentives for biology is still deeply traditional; new, interesting, or novel discoveries do not necessarily get well rewarded at all. The biology research and development system strongly favors academia politics and close sourced large corporations.
itsgrimetime 7y ago
do you have links to reading about these? I'm curious but can't figure out search terms to find them myself
- koeng 7y ago
  Sorry for late response, but here is for the reverse transcriptase plasmid - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VS_ribozyme https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VS_ribozyme Here's for phage CRISPR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2007-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2007-4

ak217 7y ago

The authors characterized an obligate parasite that lost its mitochondria and steals energy from the host instead. While this is technically the first animal to be found to lose its mitochondria, it's not the first eukaryote. They didn't find a novel eukaryotic energy system. There are many parasites that lose essential cellular machinery because the host provides it, this is just a relatively complex one.

pvaldes 7y ago
The group is still poorly known and giving surprise after surprise in the last decades. Complex life cycle with two totally different kind of spores. Some were wrongly chategorised as two different species, other classified as animals are now known to be fungus (and two different lineages of very distant related fungus noneless)... Really misunderstood group for most of the modern scientific period. The idea that there was not one extant parasitic "jellyfish" [1] , but thousands of a new branch of parasitic cnidarians was revolucionary at 90's. [1] Technically they are not Scyphozoa, Cubozoa or Hydrozoa, so they are not jellyfishes (neither corals).

dnautics 7y ago

Ok so to give you a bit of perspective, I didn't click through, and I thought, oh it's probably a parasite because parasites lose their mitochondria. Then I clicked through. I wasn't even a systems biologist, but a chemist/biochemist that got giardia once in grad school.

pvaldes 7y ago

I had studied related species before, is a very strange group and economically surprisingly relevant. Is not clear if they looking at the plasmid or at the spore. Spores are made to endure harsh environments, "aren't totally alive" in a methabolic sense of the term, and could have created different methods to breath. Cnidarians are really old. From the article is possible that we could have a second lineage to mitocondrial origin, or that the animal have lost part of their DNA to simplify and adapt to parasitic life. Evolving to pack as many copies of itself as possible with minimum space and limited resources, and that would be really interesting, yes.

TallGuyShort 7y ago

I think the key is this: >> Some microbes that don't breathe oxygen breathe hydrogen instead, but there's no evidence Henneguya does this. Some parasitic microbes don't breathe themselves, but steal energy molecules called ATP from their hosts. "We believe this is what our parasite is doing," Huchon said. This isn't an entirely novel thing they've discovered. Similar animal-like things have been studied, but this is the first time it's actually animal cells being observed with the behavior. It's something we've seen before, but only in even lower forms of life. It's cool and new interesting, but it's not paradigm-breaking.