Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US were able to replicate 3,000 generations of the evolution of a snowflake yeast model organism. Researchers report the results of the evolution experiment article Nature magazine.
The question of how exactly multicellular organisms evolved from unicellular ancestors is poorly understood. To better understand the details of this process, the researchers launched the first long-term evolutionary experiment that the team expects to take decades.
In vitro evolution, snowflake yeast has evolved to be physically stronger and 20,000 times larger than its ancestors.
“We found that there is an entirely new physical mechanism that allows the bands to grow to very, very large sizes,” the study’s authors explained.
They said the “branches” of the yeast get tangled up when the clustered cells begin to behave like a vine, swirling around each other, thereby reinforcing the entire structure. Such biophysical evolution is a necessary condition for the emergence of large multicellular life visible to the naked eye.
Former scientists at Purdue University in the open the mechanism of self-formation of peptides – molecules necessary for the emergence of life.