A recent study by Ruibao Li and Jennah Dharamshi found that nature This may help us understand the beginnings of animal evolution billions of years ago. These discoveries are the result of a collaboration between researchers at Indiana University Bloomington, the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Spain, and Uppsala University in Sweden, led by JP Gerdt and Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo.
These researchers discovered that after feeding certain single-celled relatives of animals with specific bacteria, the single cells began to attach to each other, revealing the manner in which our ancestors may have begun evolving into animals billions of years ago.
Animal bodies are made up of trillions of cells that work together. Billions of years ago, before animals evolved, all living things on Earth were single-celled organisms. Eventually, some of these cells begin to attach to each other, work together, and reproduce as a multicellular organism. Some of these early multicellular organisms evolved into modern-day plants and fungi, while others evolved into animals.
How and why cells start sticking together has long been a mystery to scientists. To get to the bottom of this mystery, Lee and his colleagues researched Lively servicea single-celled organism that shares an ancient ancestor with modern animals.
M. Vibration It lives by eating bacteria. Lee rigorously tested different bacterial foods until she found one that promoted celibacy. M. Vibration Cells stick together and become multicellular. Bacteria are trapped between cells that are clumped together, meaning they are more efficient. M. Vibration Rather than remaining as single-celled organisms, they cling to each other to gather food. Additionally, cells may be able to protect food from other organisms by sticking together.
Sticking together also provides an opportunity for cells to exchange genes through mating, which can create new gene combinations that allow adaptation to new environments.
Lee and Dharamshi observed that: M. Vibration The evolution from unicellular to multicellular cells produces the same proteins that many animal cells use to bond. multicellular morphology M. Vibration They also produced many proteins that animal cells use to communicate and coordinate behavior. The researchers concluded that the single-celled organisms that evolved into animals likely used these proteins to form multicellular bodies and cooperate.
Mr. Lee and his colleagues M. Vibration. This creature is much simpler than humans, which makes it easier to study. This means it may also help uncover overlooked genes involved in specific developmental processes or diseases.
But “the question this creature has the most power to answer is what the single-celled ancestors of animals looked like,” says JP Gerdt, an associate professor of chemistry at Indiana University Bloomington. “This is one of the best systems we have to go back a billion years and see what our ancestors were like at that stage.”
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DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10748-5
