Institute of Cytology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 194064 St. Petersburg, Russia.
Int J Mol Sci. 2022 Apr 14;23(8):4345. doi: 10.3390/ijms23084345.
This work describes curious structures formed by the mainly phytopathogenic mycoplasma , as well as the human pathogen cells which resemble cell-in-cell structures of higher eukaryotes and protists. The probable significance of such structures for the mycoplasma cell is discussed. The possibility of their formation in nature and their potential role in the transformation of genetic material, for example, by maintaining (on the one hand) the stability of the genome in the line of generations during asexual reproduction or (on the other hand) the genome plasticity, are substantiated. It should be especially noted that all the arguments presented are based only on morphological data. However, closer attention to unusual structures, the existence of which was shown by electron microscopy images in this case, may prompt researchers to analyze their data more carefully and find something rare and non-trivial among seemingly trivial things. If it is proven by additional methods that cell-in-cell structures can indeed be formed by prokaryotes without a cell wall, this phenomenon may acquire general biological significance.
本文描述了主要植物病原菌支原体以及类似于真核生物和原生生物的“细胞内包含细胞”结构的人类病原体细胞所形成的奇异结构。讨论了这些结构对于支原体细胞的可能意义。本文还证实了这些结构在自然界中形成的可能性及其在遗传物质转化中的潜在作用，例如，通过在无性繁殖过程中（一方面）在世代中保持基因组的稳定性，或者（另一方面）基因组的可塑性。值得特别注意的是，本文提出的所有论点都仅基于形态学数据。然而，对异常结构的进一步关注，正如本案例中的电子显微镜图像所显示的那样，可能促使研究人员更仔细地分析他们的数据，并在看似微不足道的事物中发现一些罕见而不平凡的东西。如果通过其他方法证明确实可以形成没有细胞壁的原核细胞内包含细胞结构，那么这种现象可能具有普遍的生物学意义。
