Let's go sunning / It's so good for you
March 10, 2015 12:19 PM Subscribe
Leafy, verdant Elysia chlorotica (the Eastern Emerald Elysia) is a sea slug with a secret: they photosynthesize. These marauding mollusks slurp up chloroplasts from their favorite algal snack, Vaucheria litorea, incorporating them into their own digestive cells and putting them to work soaking up sunshine (and, incidentally, acquiring a healthy green glow). But how?
That's the mystery long haunting slug science: how do they maintain chloroplast functionality--how do they take traditionally plant organelles and make them work? Do they...are they...maybe the genetic swapping goes beyond simple organelle thievery? Previous research has explored this before, but results have been inconsistent, with alternate theories proposed that the chloroplasts serve as energy reserves rather than sources. However, a December 2014 study provides more evidence for the dominant assumption: horizontal gene transfer between V. litorea and E. chlorotica coding for chloroplast proteins and chlorophyll synthesis. These sun soaking slugs? They're a little bit algae. As the old saw warbles: you are what you eat.
Well. Maybe. Even accounting for the updated data, much remains mysterious about these beautiful animals and their impossible genes.
[Previously]
That's the mystery long haunting slug science: how do they maintain chloroplast functionality--how do they take traditionally plant organelles and make them work? Do they...are they...maybe the genetic swapping goes beyond simple organelle thievery? Previous research has explored this before, but results have been inconsistent, with alternate theories proposed that the chloroplasts serve as energy reserves rather than sources. However, a December 2014 study provides more evidence for the dominant assumption: horizontal gene transfer between V. litorea and E. chlorotica coding for chloroplast proteins and chlorophyll synthesis. These sun soaking slugs? They're a little bit algae. As the old saw warbles: you are what you eat.
Well. Maybe. Even accounting for the updated data, much remains mysterious about these beautiful animals and their impossible genes.
[Previously]
What a stunning creature. Fascinating work. Thanks!
Might this provide a biological model for the holy grail of sustainable energy--namely, artificial photosynthesis?
posted by mondo dentro at 12:30 PM on March 10, 2015
Might this provide a biological model for the holy grail of sustainable energy--namely, artificial photosynthesis?
posted by mondo dentro at 12:30 PM on March 10, 2015
It's kind of surprising that the genes aren't inherited. You'd think if they have developed this sophisticated gene-jumping mechanism, that at least once along the way the genes would have been incorporated into germ cells.
posted by tavella at 12:33 PM on March 10, 2015
posted by tavella at 12:33 PM on March 10, 2015
It's kind of surprising that the genes aren't inherited. You'd think if they have developed this sophisticated gene-jumping mechanism, that at least once along the way the genes would have been incorporated into germ cells.
So what I'm hearing is, no plasmids and splicers yet.
posted by pwnguin at 1:02 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
So what I'm hearing is, no plasmids and splicers yet.
posted by pwnguin at 1:02 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
This beautiful creature reminds me of the sad fact that Lynn Margulis, the person most responsible for putting the theory of symbiogenesis on proper scientific footing, died one week before she was supposed to come and talk at a conference I was helping to organize in 2011. Never got a chance to talk with her.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:02 PM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 1:02 PM on March 10, 2015 [2 favorites]
Sea slugs are awesome, ask Patrick Krug and hemaphoditic slug porn along with his pet species Alderia Willowi
posted by lalochezia at 1:17 PM on March 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 1:17 PM on March 10, 2015 [3 favorites]
Metafilter: the mystery long haunting slug science
posted by Buckt at 1:24 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Buckt at 1:24 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Well, connect this up with the earlier custom baby genetics thread and we might solve world food shortage!
While I appreciate your modest proposal, I think we should just eat the algea ourselves. Make a smoothie or something, you know?
posted by curious nu at 1:27 PM on March 10, 2015
While I appreciate your modest proposal, I think we should just eat the algea ourselves. Make a smoothie or something, you know?
posted by curious nu at 1:27 PM on March 10, 2015
I'm sure somebody somewhere is working on a BrainPal to go with green, cholorphyll-laden skin.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:44 PM on March 10, 2015
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 1:44 PM on March 10, 2015
Elysia chlorotica is a sea slug with a secret . . . These marauding mollusks slurp up chloroplasts . . . But how do they take traditionally plant organelles and make them work? Do they . . . are they . . . maybe . . .
Ya-a-a-a-s, the mollusc is a randy little fellow whose primitive brain scarcely strays from the subject of you know what. The randiest of the gastropods is the limpet. This hot-blooded little beast with its tent-like shell is always on the job . . . Another loose-living gastropod is the periwinkle. This shameless little libertine with its characteristic ventral locomotion is not the marrying kind: 'Anywhere anytime' is its motto. Up with the shell and they're at it . . . the great scallop . . . this tatty, scrofulous old rapist, is second in depravity only to the common clam. This latter is a right whore, a harlot, a trollop, a cynical bed-hopping firm-breasted rabelaisian bit of sea food that makes Fanny Hill look like a dead pope . . .posted by Herodios at 1:55 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
It's kind of surprising that the genes aren't inherited. You'd think if they have developed this sophisticated gene-jumping mechanism, that at least once along the way the genes would have been incorporated into germ cells.
Wait, that final article says that the slugs do have algal DNA.
Wait, that final article says that the slugs do have algal DNA.
SHAPIRO: The elysia are born with the algae DNA. At first, Pierce thought that sometime in the past, the algae DNA got transferred to an ancestral sea slug by a kind of virus called a retrovirus.posted by maryr at 2:30 PM on March 10, 2015
PIERCE: Retroviruses are capable of moving small pieces of DNA around from organism to organism.
SHAPIRO: But the virus didn’t just insert algae DNA into the sea slug.
PIERCE: That virus resides in the DNA of the slug.
SHAPIRO: So the sea slug has sea slug DNA, it has algae DNA, and it's got viral DNA.
PIERCE: Exactly. Yep. DNA is very complicated business.
SHAPIRO: The sea slugs live for about 10 months. Then somehow the viral DNA switches on. When the elysia die, their cells are just riddled with retrovirus.
Sea slugs do this a lot. There's a kind of cell called a "nematocyst" which jellyfish and anemones (among others) have. Nematocysts are how jellyfish sting their prey (and you, if you're unlucky).
Some kinds of sea slugs prey on some kinds of creatures that have nematocysts, and instead of digesting them, they incorporate them into their own flesh and use them for defense. This is called kleptocnidae. (And if you can pronounce that, you're a better pickle than I am.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:37 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Some kinds of sea slugs prey on some kinds of creatures that have nematocysts, and instead of digesting them, they incorporate them into their own flesh and use them for defense. This is called kleptocnidae. (And if you can pronounce that, you're a better pickle than I am.)
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 3:37 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]
Oh, that's cool. Thanks for posting.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:27 PM on March 10, 2015
posted by soundguy99 at 9:27 PM on March 10, 2015
Sea slugs are awesome, ask Patrick Krug and hemaphoditic slug porn along with his pet species Alderia Willowi
posted by lalochezia at 3:17 PM on March 10 [2 favorites +] [!]
OMG lalochezia, the name of this sea slug is eerily simular to my real name. Thanks for the link. I really am a humble nudibranch.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:49 PM on March 10, 2015
posted by lalochezia at 3:17 PM on March 10 [2 favorites +] [!]
OMG lalochezia, the name of this sea slug is eerily simular to my real name. Thanks for the link. I really am a humble nudibranch.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 11:49 PM on March 10, 2015
I really am a humble nudibranch.
Well . . . please remember to at least wear some sunscreen, then.
posted by Herodios at 11:57 AM on March 11, 2015
Well . . . please remember to at least wear some sunscreen, then.
posted by Herodios at 11:57 AM on March 11, 2015
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posted by sammyo at 12:29 PM on March 10, 2015 [1 favorite]