[HN Gopher] Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive...
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       Single-celled protists in the guts of animals thrive without
       mitochondria
        
       Author : PaulHoule
       Score  : 21 points
       Date   : 2023-12-28 15:14 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (phys.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
        
       | gus_massa wrote:
       | Is there Oxygen in the guts? Whitout Oxygen, mithocondria are not
       | very useful.
        
         | pazimzadeh wrote:
         | There is in the small intestine, and close to the epithelium in
         | the large intestine
        
         | angiosperm wrote:
         | 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.)
        
       | isoprophlex wrote:
       | 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
       | :^)
        
         | atticora wrote:
         | > 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.
        
           | timschmidt wrote:
           | We are a holobiont with a hologenome.
        
         | wearsshoes wrote:
         | Oxymonads are oxymonoids in the category of enterofauna, of
         | course
        
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