E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Christine Oesterhelt
This is a rock in an Icelandic hot spring near Reykjavik with sulfur and Galdieria sulphuraria.
By Megan Gannon
LiveScience
The red alga Galdieria sulphuraria has a penchant for extremes. The single-celled organism can be found in hot sulfur springs in Iceland or Yellowstone National Park, cooking up food through photosynthesis. But it can just as well thrive in the caustic drainage of a dark old mine shaft among toxic metals such as arsenic and mercury, feeding on bacteria.
Scientists have discovered how Galdieria came to be so versatile: It pilfered the genes it needs to survive in such hostile places from simpler organisms, such as bacteria and archaea, that were already adapted to extremes.
"Why reinvent the wheel if you can copy it from your neighbor?" asked study researcher Martin Lercher of Heinrich-Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany. Lercher and colleagues sequenced the genome of Galdieria and found that at least 5 percent of its protein-coding genes look as if they were taken from less-complex species.
For example, Galdieria seems to derive its tolerance for high temperatures from a single gene that it stole from heat-loving archaea and then copied hundreds of times, the researchers say. (Archaea that thrive in the hottest places tend to have the most copies of this gene.) Galdieria also can endure high salt concentrations and make use of a wide variety of food sources likely because it robbed other genes from extremophile bacteria, the study shows.
The researchers say Galdieria is the first known eukaryote (organism with a nucleus) that has adapted to its extreme lifestyle through a process known as horizontal gene transfer, in which genes are exchanged without sex between organisms that aren't related to each other.
"It's usually assumed that organisms with a nucleus cannot copy genes from different species — that's why eukaryotes depend on sex to recombine their genomes. How has Galdieria managed to overcome this limitation? It's an exciting question," Lercher said in a statement.
Another Heinrich-Heine University researcher, Andreas Weber, said in a statement that Galdieria's feat is "a dream come true for biotechnology."
"Galdieria has acquired genes with interesting properties from different organisms, integrated them into a functional network and developed unique properties and adaptations," Weber added. Advances in genetic engineering might make it possible to endow other algae with proteins similar to the ones that give Galdieria its high stress tolerance — an alluring prospect for oil-producing algae that could be exploited for biofuels, the researchers say.
The study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, was detailed this week in the journal Science.
Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.
- Extreme Life on Earth: 8 Bizarre Creatures
- Image Gallery: One-of-a-Kind Places on Earth
- Award-Winning Microscope Images
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Leave a Comment:
Remember, God said: Thou shalt not steal
This is why evolution is godless. Those algae heathens.
Heathens or not, this is a way cool story! "Life will find a way"
God also said feed the poor and hungry, give to them who have not.If any are thirsty, give ye drink, if cold, give regiment. Looks more like generosity to me.Though they still probably went off and started their own Babylon civilization.Definitely the haves over the have nots. Just imagine the missionaries efforts though
But we also need to be careful that any genetically modified organisms we create using this unique system will not accidently have that system in any of them since that would allow them to mutate freely once released into nature. Talk about a bad superbug!
Um, all organisms mutate freely in nature. And how would a bio-engineered organism "accidentally" have a sophisticated and fully adapted gene-copying system?
Genestealers!
Seriously though, I wonder what the upper limits of this ability is; does the algae only copy from organisms it can absorb? Could it take genes from specialized cells of multi-celled organisms?
I also wonder how it "chooses" which materials to take from a cell so that it ends up with beneficial genes. Interesting.
Probably randomly. The best thieves - or cheaters - survive. Might have a more sophisticated mechanism, but a simple one such as this would work just as well.
Yellowstone is a super-volcano, with multiple past eruptions, last major one 640kya. Presumably, Yellowstone was wiped clean after that. I've often wondered how archaea, and now this alga, got there in this time period? It seems far from ocean vents to find its way to places like Yellowstone, or into mines.
Like tiny Borg. You will be assimilated.
In a more complex organism, like if this genetic stealing was something that a mammal or person could do, it would sound like something from a Star Trek, Stargate, or even a Fringe episode.
All writers for science fiction TV shows really have to do for new ideas for their shows is to read about current but real scientific discoveries.
Yes, by borrowing this genetic capability from Galdieria ourselves, we can pretty much manufacture any genetic combination we want in the future. This is most exciting, but we also need to be very careful at the same time that we don't unleash something upon ourselves that we will later regret. - RC