News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive with... by gus_massa on Thursday December 28, 2023 @02:49PM (#38797745)
Is there Oxygen in the guts? Whitout Oxygen, mithocondria are not very useful.
Re:Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive with... by pazimzadeh on Thursday December 28, 2023 @03:57PM (#38798505)
There is in the small intestine, and close to the epithelium in the large intestine
Re:Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive with... by angiosperm on Thursday December 28, 2023 @05:49PM (#38799738)
Following links from the article, we may find that mitochondria are usually integral to several other processes besides oxygen metabolism. So, it's not surprising to find that protists in anaerobic environments don't need their mitochondria to process (usually) absent oxygen.

But it was surprising to find these protists producing iron-sulfur complexes without the aid of mitochondria. And, able to break down glycine and serine to form folic and then formic acid, and methionine, which normally happens within mitochondria.

Nothing in biology is as simple as "X does Y, and nothing else", and rarely "X, and nothing else, does Y". There seems to be no benefit to simplicity in biology, which makes the near-universality of the genetic code the more astonishing. ("Near", because minor variations occur even there.)

Re:Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive with... by isoprophlex on Thursday December 28, 2023 @03:44PM (#38798356)
These lifeforms without mitochondria are apparently called "oxymonads", as per the article.

I'm sure there's a Haskell joke in there somewhere, something about these oxymonads just being oxymonoids in the category of endofunctors, but I'm too busy burning my oxygen to figure it out :^)

Re:Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive with... by atticora on Thursday December 28, 2023 @04:07PM (#38798617)
> I'm too busy burning my oxygen to figure it out

Your mitochondria are doing that so your brain doesn't have to spend attention on it. And its not very clear whether they are "you" or your symbiotes.

Re:Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive with... by timschmidt on Thursday December 28, 2023 @05:13PM (#38799376)
We are a holobiont with a hologenome.
Re:Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive with... by wearsshoes on Thursday December 28, 2023 @05:26PM (#38799505)
Oxymonads are oxymonoids in the category of enterofauna, of course
Re:Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive with... by mcswell on Friday December 29, 2023 @07:31PM (#38811806)
But boy do they have midichlorians!