Whitlock Jarred M, Chernomordik Leonid V
Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA.
Section on Membrane Biology, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Bioessays. 2025 Feb;47(2):e2400206. doi: 10.1002/bies.202400206. Epub 2024 Nov 6.
As life extended into eukaryota, a great host of strategies emerged in the pursuit of cellular life. Some cells have been successful in solitude, some moved into cooperatives (i.e., multicellular organisms), but one additional strategy emerged. Throughout eukaryotes, many of the diverse multicellular cooperatives took life in partnership one step further. These cells came together and lost their singularity in the expanse of syncytial life. Recently in our search for this elusive "how", we discovered the intriguing peculiarity of a nuclear, RNA-binding protein living a second life as a fusion manager at the surface of developing osteoclasts, ushering them into syncytia 1. It is from here that we will develop several thoughts about the advantages of multinucleated cells and discuss how these fusing cells pass through several hallmarks of cell death. We will propose that cell fusion shares much with cell death because cell fusion is a death of sorts for the cells that undergo it - a death of the life that was and the beginning of new life in a community without borders.
随着生命扩展到真核生物领域，为追求细胞生命出现了大量策略。一些细胞独自生存得很成功，一些则进入了合作形式（即多细胞生物），但还出现了另一种策略。在整个真核生物中，许多不同的多细胞合作形式将生命伙伴关系又推进了一步。这些细胞聚集在一起，在合胞体生命的广阔空间中失去了它们的独特性。最近，在我们探寻这种难以捉摸的“方式”时，我们发现了一种核RNA结合蛋白的有趣特性，它在发育中的破骨细胞表面作为融合管理者有着“第二重生命”，引导它们形成合胞体1。正是从这里出发，我们将展开关于多核细胞优势的若干思考，并讨论这些融合细胞如何跨越细胞死亡的几个标志。我们将提出，细胞融合与细胞死亡有很多共同之处，因为细胞融合对经历融合的细胞来说是某种形式的死亡——是原有生命的死亡，也是在一个无边界群落中新生生命的开始。
