HYPHEN-SIZED CREATURE FOUND TO BE BIGGEST GERM (NEWS ARTICLE, THE SUN)

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00789R003900550002-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 8, 2000
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 18, 1993
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2000/08/10 : CIA-RDP96-00789R003900550002-8
THURSDAY, MARCH 18,1993 ? VOLUME 312, NUMBER 105 BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Hyphen-sized creature found to be biggest germ
3y Natalie Angier Naked eye able to see single-celled giant 1 traordi ary dimensions' the orgy
sew York Times News Service 19m s genesbore all the earmarks
Flouting the scientific canon that eth of an Inch In length and possess-
;11 bacteria are c, re-., ing a volume a million times that of
earchers have discovered trai "'the common E. colt microbe, the
o huugge that it can be"seen with the newly discovered bacterium seems to
lakedeye. defy laws of biology that limit how
The single celled organism, big a simple bacterial cell can grow.
)lucked from the bowel`s of an Aus- So outsized is the creature that
railan fish, is about the size of a researchers may soon be able to use
iyphen in a newspaper, making it it to begin exploring the'intimate de-
)y far the largest bacterium ever de- tails of bacterial innards, a task im-
ected. possible with the tinier species of mi-
In measuring more than one-fifti- crobes.
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 exclti
ology that could be done with this and it's an extremely convincing l:
thing." per,'-said Dr. James R. Lupski
The 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-experi- genetics. The old way of defining
ments that demonstrated the bacte- bacterium was to look under a r
rial nature of the beast.
She showed that despite Its ex- See BACTERIA, 15A, Col.
Hyphen-sized blob found
to be world's biggest germ
Naked eye able
to see creature
croscope, see what size It was and
whether It stained one way or anoth-
er. Now we're redefining life forms
based on what kind of DNA they
have."
Commanding though the bacteri-
um is, it may not be the world's larg-
est.
Realizing that bacteria have the
ability to grow beyond boundaries
previously set for them, scientists
may well find other examples of sin-
gle-celled beings with macroscopic
aspirations.
"This type of study points to how
little we know about microbial diver-
sity," Ms. Angert said. "Here's this
huge organism that seems to, be a
significant part of a fish's intestines,
and it's just recently been discov-
ered. Who can say what else is out
there waiting to be found?"
Scientists have long believed that
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. fishelsoni 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
Approved ~iCta CI'e'efthM0550002-8
cellular organization for swift move- caught around the Great Barrier
..-,..nt of n?trientq and nxvden inside Reef of Australia.