Symbiotics

It is curious to think that as human being we harbour thousands of different sorts of bacteria, fungi and viruses in our intestines to help us digest food. There is now a lot of discussion about these helping us resist disease as well. Which types of gut flora a person has has now been linked with obesity, psoriasis and many other diseases. Doctors are even experimenting with considerably yucky faecal transplants. However researchers are saying that some gut bugs will be found to be good, some to be bad and some indifferent.

If we find other creatures so helpful in our intestines, could they also help us in other parts of our bodies? For example could another creature be used to kill the malaria parasite or to fight disease if antibiotics no longer work?

Mitochondria and chloroplasts

You may not know this but you are not just a human being. For a start you have thousands of different sorts of bacteria, fungi and viruses in your intestines. And then there are your mitochondria.

These were originally an independent bacteria, presumably swimming around in primeval ocean. However at some point in the dim and distant part they entered animal cells and have been working as the cell’s power supply ever since.

Plants have something similar called a chloroplast which was also a bacterium at one time. It contains the chlorophyll which give plans their power supply.

In addition to mitochondria; corals (which are animals) also contain algae which help them survive by taking energy from sunlight to power the coral polyps. It has recently been found that due to global warming many corals are losing their algae, going white and dying. However some corals live in really warm seas and can survive high temperatures because they contain slightly different algae which like higher temperatures. It has now been shown that if the corals at risk of bleaching are inoculated with higher temperature algae, they are less likely to die.

Something similar has recently been approved by the UK government in humans. This is called mitochondria replacement and is done because some children are born with weakened mitochondrion which dramatically reduces their life expectancy.

This opens the door for researchers to investigate not just mitochondrial transfers between people, but between people and other species, or even transferring chloroplasts from plants to people!

This opens the door for researchers to investigate not just mitochondrial transfers between people, but between people and other species, or even transferring chloroplasts from plants to people!