Microbe somehow survives without the proteins for replicating its DNA
Technology

Microbe somehow survives without key proteins for replicating its DNA


DNA replication

To copy DNA, the enzymes helicase (red) and polymerase (blue) are usually needed

EQUINOX GRAPHICS/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

AT FIRST sight, it shouldn’t be alive: a single-celled organism that lacks most of the molecular equipment needed to kick-start DNA replication.

Duplicating DNA is fundamental to reproduction, so DNA replication systems were thought to be present in all non-parasitic species with complex cells. But it seems they aren’t.

“I was astonished,” says Dayana Salas-Leiva at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. The microbe, Carpediemonas membranifera, must have a mechanism for copying its DNA that is unknown to science.

C. membranifera

Article amended on
24 March 2021

We clarified the role the missing proteins play in DNA replication



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