HYPHEN-SIZED BLOB FOUND TO BE WORLD`S BIGGEST GERM (NEWS ARTICLE , THE SUN)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00789R003900540002-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 27, 1998
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 18, 1993
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2001/03/07 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003900540002-9
18,1993 ? VOLUME 312, NUMBER 105
eth of an Inch in length and possess-
ing a volume a million times that of
the common E. cola microbe, the
newly discovered bacterium seems to
defy laws of biology that limit how
big a simple bacterial cell can grow.
So outsized is the creature that
researchers may soon be able to use
it to begin exploring the'intimate de-
tails of bacterial innards, a task Im-
possible with the tinier species of mi-
crobes.
1yphen-sized creature found to bebigg.St germ
3y Natalie Angler
ew York Times News Service
Flouting the scientific canon that
11 bacteria are microsco ic, re
.earchers have discovered strain
.e?llougge that It can be seen with the
.ak~edeye.
The single-celled organism,
lucked from the bowels of an Aus-
ralian fish, Is about the size of a
;yphen in a newspaper, making It
-y far the largest bacterium ever de-
rcted.
In measuring more than one-fifti-
Approved
inary' Naked eye able to see single-celled giant ; s ge ebore all the ear; orga:
s
AA
]. I G H T
a bacterium. The report of the gia
"It's so huge that we could stick bacterium, called Epulopiscium fis
electrodes Into it," said Esther R. An-: . elsoni,'appears today In the Brits;
gert of Indiana University in Bloom-, journal Nature.
ington. "There's a world of cell physi- "I think it's incredibly excitii
ology that could be done with this and it's an extremely convincing l:
thing." .Per,"- said Dr. James R. Lupski
he researcher, who Is finishing Baylor College of Medicine in Hoc
her doctorate in the laboratory of Dr. ton, who has long studied bacter
Norman Pace, performed the-.expert- genetics. The old way of deflnin,
ments that demonstrated the'bacte- bacterium was to look under a n
dal nature of the beast.
She showed that despite its ex- See BACTERIA, 15A, Col.
Hyphen-sized blob found
to be world's biggest germ
able
Naked eye to see creature
croscope, see what s
whether It stained on
life forms
er. Now we're redefining
of DNA they
based on what kind
have."
Commanding the
um the world's larg-
um is,, It may not be est.
Realizing that bat
boundaries
ability to grow beyond
scientists
previously set for them,
Scientists have lon size it was and ugh the bacteri-
may well find other e
h macroscopic
gle-celled beings with
est. bacteria have the examples of sinbelfevedthat
aspirations.
points to how
"This type of study little we know about
diver-
microbial
"Here's this
sity," Ms. Angert said.
huge organism that
Intestines,
significant part of a fish's
been
and It's just recently discov-
hat else Is out
ered. Who can say w
there waiting to be found?"
g
them, must rely on slow diffusion to
wrest what they need from their sur-
roundings. So they must remain very
tiny to allow essential molecules to
drift from one part of the cell to an-
other.
By comparison, the cells of higher
organisms, such as yeast, algae. in-
sects and humans, are eukaryotes
and have small internal structures to
ferry molecules about.
Pulverizing the genetic material
from the bacteria, the researchers
multiplied the DNA into millions of
copies through the use of a technique
called polymerase chain reaction.
They next compared the genes
with those from many other known
prokaryotes and eukaryotes and
demonstrated that E. flshelsoni is a
true bacterium.
Indeed, when the organism was
discovered in 1985 by Israeli re-
searchers who found It In the Intes-
tinal tract of common brown sur-
geonfish living in the Red Sea, they
thought It must be an alga. protozo-
an or other eukaryote.
More recently, Kendall D. Clem-
ents of James Cook University in
FHt'afteriqfl#findCeiea9i'A',0540002-9
cellular organization for swift move- caught around the Great Barrier
.Wont of nntrhrntQ and nxvaen Inside Reef of Australia.