Scientists at Donald Danforth Plant Science Center led by James Uman, PhD, have recently accidentally discovered green algae cell’s opposition to single cell division which will help their research on multicellular evolution engineering.
These scientists began their research on the single-cell green alga Chlamydomonas to control cell division in previous months. Chlamydomonas cells are known to be able to grow much larger than their original size and divide numerous times. James Uman decided to focus on the reasoning for this multiple-cell biased division; the mother cells either divided more than once at least, or they just never divided. Within each cell, there is a mechanism called the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor pathway which is responsible for preventing just one cell division. This discovery of bias against single-cell division will be able to contribute to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center’s next research project: the evolution of multicellular life. Since these unicellular organisms are presenting this bias, their multicellular relatives will continue to display this bias, most likely with an amplified rate.
With the new research that will contribute to their future focus on multicellular evolution, these scientists expect developments in engineering algal cells which will provide better success of biofuel engineering and other high value products. Nicole Scarlatescu (11) believes, “This will also affect cell engineering because it provides beneficial information that can help with research on multicellular evolution and editing of cell division.” The most prominent expected research outcome is new developments on how cells try to prevent cancer. This research could eventually lead to efforts on manipulating the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor pathway to take over cancer prevention as an effort to treat cancer. “I believe this discovery could affect many scientific fields, notably the medical field,” states Grace Sheppard (11).
