Approved For Release 2003/04/18
: CIA-RDP96-00789R003900560002-7
Hyphen-sized creature found to be biggdst germ
Naked eye able to see single-celled giant
3y Natalie Angler
Jew York Times News Service
Flouting the scientific canon that
ill bacteria
are
mlcroscoplo^jre^
earcnerahave discovered a StralrT
/v-hiigeffiat It can beseen with the
lared eve!~
_
-—--
The
slngle-cefletT organism
,
iltyAeaTrom the bowels~of an Aus-
Tftllan
fish,
is about the size of a
vyf>hen In a newspaper, making It
>y far the largest bacterium ever de-
ected.
In measuring more than one-flfti-
eth of an Inch In length and possess-
ing a volume a million times that of
the common
E.
coll
microbe,
the
newly discovered bacterium seems to
defy laws of biology that limit how
big a simple bacterial cell can grow.
So outslzed
Is the creature that
researchers may soon be able to use
It to begin exploring the Intimate de-
tails of bacterial Innards, a task im-
possible with the tinier species of mi-
crobes.
“It's so huge that we could stick
electrodes into it," said Esther R. An-
gert of Indiana University in Bloom-
ington. “There’s a world of cell physi-
ology that could be done with this
thing."
The researcher, who is finishing
her doctorate in the laboratory of Dr
.
Norman Pace, performed the experi-
ments that demonstrated the bacte-
rial nature of the beast.
She showed that despite Its ex-
traordinary dimensions, the orgai
iSm’s genes bore all the earmarks
i
a bacterium. The report of the glai
bacterium, called Epulopiscium flsl
elsoni, appears today In the Britls
Journal Nature.
<
“I think
It's incredibly
excltlr
and it’s an extremely convincing p;
per,"' said Dr. James R. Lupskl
i
Baylor College of Medicine in Houi
ton, who has long studied bacterii
genetics. “The old way of defining
bacterium was to look under a m
See BACTERIA, 15A,Col.
Hyphen-sized blob found
to be world’s biggest germ
Naked eye able
to see creature
BACTERIA, from 1
A
croscope, see what size
it was and
whether it stained one way or anoth-
er. Now we’re redefining life forms
based on what kind of DNA they
have."
Commanding though the bacteri-
um Is, It may not be the world’s larg-
est.
Realizing that bacteria have the
ability to grow beyond boundaries
previously set for them, scientists
may well find other examples of sin-
gle-celled beings with macroscopic
aspirations.
"This type of study points to how
little we know about microbial diver-
sity," Ms. Angert said. “Here’s this
huge organism that seems to be a
significant part of a fish’s intestines,
and
it’s Just recently been discov-
ered. Who can say what else is out
there waiting to be found?"
them, must rely on slow diffusion to
wrest what they need from their sur-
roundings. So they must remain very
tiny to Slow essential molecules to
drift from one part of the cell to an-
other.
By comparison, the cells of higher
organisms, such as yeast, algae. In-
sects and humans, are eukaryotes
and have small internal structures to
ferry molecules about.
Pulverizing the genetic material
from the bacteria, the researchers
multiplied the DNA Into millions of
copies through the use of a technique
called polymerase chain reaction.
They next compared the genes
with those from many other known
prokaryotes and
eukaryotes and
demonstrated that E. flshelsoni is a
true bacterium.
Indeed, when the organism was
discovered in 1985 by
Israeli
re-
searchers who found it In the intes-
tinal tract of common brown sur-
geonfish living in the Red Sea, they
thought it must be an alga, protozo-
an or other eukaryote.
More recently, Kendall D. Clem-
Scientists have long believed that
ents of James Cook University In
cellular organization for swift move-
caught around the Great Barrier
ment of nutrients and oxygen inside
Reef of Australia.