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A newfound miniskirt - organ in mammal cadre is a trap that snaps close around lilliputian rings of DNA . Scientists believe it may be an in - built defense system for the genome and a relic from a sentence before complex jail cell .
All animals , plants and fungi areeukaryotic , stand for their cells put up their deoxyribonucleic acid within a particular compartment called the nucleus . But some of the cellular phone ’s DNA exist outside this anatomical structure , in the fluid - filled body of the cell called the cytol . In increase , foreign genetic material fromvirusesand bacterium can get injected into the cytoplasm .
Rings of DNA called plasmids (pictured) floating inside mammal cells get captured by “exclusomes,” a newfound type of mini-organ.
scientist do n’t in full understand how these free - floating bit of inherited material are kept out from the cell nucleus , or why they quickly disgrace if the blueprints in that material are n’t used to make protein .
But in a recent field of study , researchers identified a unique anatomical structure that could help explicate how cells might keep this deoxyribonucleic acid aside from the nucleus .
The never - before - seen structure , which the researchers dubbed an " exclusome , " encloses this DNA . The researchers speculate that the process that this possible new organelle , or specialized cellular compartment , uses to catch DNA could be related to how the nucleus originate in early eucaryotic cells .
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The findings could shed luminosity on how cells respond to invaders and on the growing of Crab and autoimmune precondition , the researchers said .
" If DNA enters a human cell , then the jail cell has a … defence mechanism organisation , " which means that " the DNA is caught in the cytoplasm , " said senior subject field authorRuth Kroschewski , a mathematical group loss leader at the Institute of Biochemistry at ETH Zurich in Switzerland , which was published in September in the journalMolecular Biology of the Cell .
Kroschewski and her colleagues introduced teensy loops of DNA called plasmid DNA into unlike types of human cellular telephone , admit cubicle develop from donated tissue paper and HeLa cell — the first " immortal " cellular phone product line descend from the cancer cells of awoman named Henrietta Lacks . They find that , in every case , a twofold membrane mold around the plasmid DNA , shape the structure they call an exclusome .
Inside the structure , they also found genetic material that codes fortelomeres , the " caps " at the close ofchromosomesthat protect DNA from becoming put down . This telomere deoxyribonucleic acid can get pinched off into rings that swim around the cubicle .
Like the cell nucleus , the exclusome has a three-fold membrane and some of the same protein . But it lacks other elements , such as nuclear stomate complexes — structures that let only select molecules into the nucleus . The researchers also found that exclusomes stay in the cellular telephone through several rounds of cubicle division , but they did n’t end up in the young cells made in that process .
The appendage of capturing plasmid DNA could be an evolutionary token of the cellular machinery that helped spring the first atomic membrane around chromosomal DNA , Kroschewski say . But exclusomes seem unique in that they only capture genetic material that the electric cell thinks is potentially dangerous or unnecessary .
Exclusomes may also spiel a role inautoimmune disease , Kroschewski said . If a pathogen ’s deoxyribonucleic acid remains in the cubicle long after the invader injected it , this might tell cells that there is still an contagion that needs fighting .
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Birgitte Regenberg , a professor of biology at the University of Copenhagen who was not involved in the bailiwick , said that exclusomes have some law of similarity to micronuclei , or structures that mold around chromosomal DNA that end up outside the nucleus during cell sectionalization . However , the researchers distinguished exclusomes from micronuclei because they mould at different point in the cell cycle and curb no chromosomal DNA .
Understanding how jail cell respond to DNA outside of chromosome may be all important to understanding the relationship between plasmids and cancer , Regenberg tell . The rings of telomere DNA are linked to cancer because they do n’t recoil with cubicle division as they usually would and can turn on the indefinite cell division that is a assay-mark of the disease .
" We sleep with that cancers and tumor cell , they will carry a big load of the circular deoxyribonucleic acid , " she differentiate Live Science . " And that is , in some sheath , actively drive the tumour . "
