By Stephen Beech via SWNS
A sea creature fuses with a pal to survive when it gets injured, reveals new research.
Two comb jellies quickly turn into one following trauma, say scientists.
They rapidly “synchronize” their muscle contractions and merge digestive tracts to share food, according to the study.
Researchers say their findings, published in the journal Current Biology, could further attempts to regenerate human cells.
Comb jellies are gelatinous ctenophores, a distant relative of jellyfish.
Study author Dr. Kei Jokura, of the University of Exeter, said: “Our findings suggest that ctenophores may lack a system for allorecognition, which is the ability to distinguish between self and others.
“Additionally, the data imply that two separate individuals can rapidly merge their nervous systems and share action potentials.”
Dr. Jokura and his colleagues made the discovery after keeping a population of the comb jellies in a seawater lab tank.
They noticed an unusually large individual that seemed to have two backends and two sensory structures known as apical organs instead of one.
The researchers wondered if this unusual individual arose from the fusion of two injured jellies.
To find out, they removed partial lobes from other individuals and placed them close together in pairs.
It turned out that, nine out of 10 times, the injured individuals became one, surviving for at least three weeks.
Further study showed that after a single night, the two original individuals seamlessly became one with no apparent separation between them.
When the researchers poked at one lobe, the whole fused body reacted with a prominent “startle” response, suggesting that their nervous systems also were fully fused.
Dr. Jokura said: “We were astonished to observe that mechanical stimulation applied to one side of the fused ctenophore resulted in a synchronized muscle contraction on the other side.”
Further observations showed that the fused comb jellies had spontaneous movements for the first hour.
After that, the timing of contractions on each lobe started to synch up more.
After just two hours, 95% of the fused animal’s muscle contractions were completely synchronous.
The researchers also looked closely at the digestive tract to find that it also had fused.
When one of the mouths ingested fluorescently labeled brine shrimp, the food particles worked their way through the fused canal.
Eventually, the comb jelly expelled waste products from both anuses, although not at the same time.
The research team says it remains unclear how the fusion of two individuals into one functions as a way of survival.
They suggest that future studies will help to fill the gaps in understanding, with potential implications for regenerative research.
Dr. Jokura said: “The allorecognition mechanisms are related to the immune system, and the fusion of nervous systems is closely linked to research on regeneration.”
He added: “Unravelling the molecular mechanisms underlying this fusion could advance these crucial research areas.”
