Deep-sea supergiant isopod survives years without food via bacterial gene transfer enabling energy metabolism reprogramming
By
Kahou Chu7 Send email to [email protected]
Summary
The deep-sea supergiant isopod can survive over 5 years without food through a dual adaptive strategy: a distended, food-retentive stomach enabling episodic hyperphagia and a markedly reduced basal metabolic rate. Central to this adaptation is the ancient horizontal acquisition of the microbial energy metabolism-related gene ND1 via horizontal gene transfer from a bacterial symbiont, which allows the isopod to reprogram its energy allocation for prolonged starvation survival.
Source
bskyDeep-sea supergiant isopod survives years without food via bacterial gene transfer enabling energy metabolism reprogrammingcell.comKey quotes
· 4 pulledThe deep-sea supergiant isopod is renowned for surviving over 5 years without food, which is a crucial adaptive trait for megafauna inhabiting extreme environments.
Morphological, physiological, and genomic comparisons of deep-sea isopods reveal a dual adaptive strategy underlying this trait: a distended, food-retentive stomach that enables episodic hyperphagia and a markedly reduced basal metabolic rate (BMR).
Central to this adaptation is the ancient horizontal acquisition of the microbial energy metabolism-related gene ND1.
By acquiring an energy metabolism-related gene via ancient horizontal transfer from a bacterial symbiont, the deep-sea supergiant isopod gains the ability to reprogram its energy allocation, enabling survival under prolonged starvation.
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