A Strange Chlamydial "bomb" Found At The Bottom Of The Ocean

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A Strange Chlamydial "bomb" Found At The Bottom Of The Ocean
A Strange Chlamydial "bomb" Found At The Bottom Of The Ocean
Anonim

A huge accumulation of new strains of chlamydia was unexpectedly found in samples taken from the ocean floor at a depth of more than 2 km. And these chlamydia turned out to be a big mystery to scientists

A strange chlamydial "bomb" was found at the bottom of the ocean - bacteria, chlamydia, chlamydia, ocean, bottom
A strange chlamydial "bomb" was found at the bottom of the ocean - bacteria, chlamydia, chlamydia, ocean, bottom

Bacteria chlamydia as a rule, they live in the bodies of some animals, as well as in the bodies of people in whom they cause various sexual diseases.

Discovered new chlamydia is officially the first case when chlamydia was able to live outside the body of the "host" and one of the rare cases when, in general, bacteria do not parasitize inside someone, but live as autonomous organisms.

The discovery was made by a group of scientists from the University of Uppsala (Sweden) and the University of Bergen (Norway), who went to study a cluster of hydrothermal springs called Loki Castle, located between Greenland and Norway at a depth of more than 2 km.

Loki Castle. Photo: Center for Geobiology, Bergen, Norway, by R. B. Pedersen

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To study the chemical composition of bottom sediments, scientists took samples near Loki Castle and it was completely unexpected for them to find several new chlamydia in them at once.

Scientists call their find a "treasure", but many commentators have already called it a "chlamydial bomb" and asked if these new benthic chlamydiae could pose a danger to humans. But alas, nothing is said about this in the scientific report.

“The discovery of this expanded diversity in deep sea sediments was quite surprising because none of us expected to find chlamydia in them. All previous research indicates that chlamydia needs a host to survive, but there are simply no organisms in the sediments. who could become their masters, says researcher Tais Ettema from Uppsala University.

The disease that chlamydia causes in humans is called chlamydia, and it is one of the most famous sexually transmitted diseases in humans. Chlamydia also parasitizes in the bodies of cows, chickens, sheep, pigs and koalas.

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The research team still hasn't figured out how to classify these chlamydia, but the collected samples indicate the existence of dozens of new strains or even new species of bacteria.

“We have found a wide variety of new chlamydia, perhaps more than a hundred, and it is difficult to say yet whether these are different species or one species with slight differences. - says Ettema.

"They share a common ancestry that goes back several hundred million years ago, maybe even over a billion years ago."

Another surprise was that by identifying new chlamydia and trying to reproduce them in laboratory conditions, the scientists were defeated. This suggests that benthic chlamydia may still somehow be associated with other organisms, even microscopic ones, and are not really autonomous. But so far this is only a hypothesis.

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