this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
345 points (98.3% liked)

News

23598 readers
3122 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

World-leading scientists have called for a halt on research to create “mirror life” microbes amid concerns that the synthetic organisms would present an “unprecedented risk” to life on Earth.

The international group of Nobel laureates and other experts warn that mirror bacteria, constructed from mirror images of molecules found in nature, could become established in the environment and slip past the immune defences of natural organisms, putting humans, animals and plants at risk of lethal infections.

Many molecules for life can exist in two distinct forms, each the mirror image of the other. The DNA of all living organisms is made from “right-handed” nucleotides, while proteins, the building blocks of cells, are made from “left-handed” amino acids. Why nature works this way is unclear: life could have chosen left-handed DNA and right-handed proteins instead.

The fresh concerns over the technology are revealed in a 299-page report and a commentary in the journal Science. While enthusiastic about research on mirror molecules, the report sees substantial risks in mirror microbes and calls for a global debate on the work.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Currently, pathogens "use" certain resources in a host, and then the host's immune system creates antibodies that eventually kill the pathogens (or the pathogen kills the host).

This is a pretty good understanding. However, antibodies are only one tool in the immune systems of complex animals. There are also a number of specialized immune cells that perform jobs like patrolling the body to try to detect foreign cells and objects to "label" as invaders, or phagocytes that try to envelope and digest foreign cells and objects. Additionally, there are strategies like making the body a less hospitable environment by increasing the temperature (fever). Antimicrobial chemical production is also very common in single-celled organisms but identified in fewer complex animals.

My question is: mirror or otherwise, could a pathogen "hijack" something other than usual as a resource?

Let's say, I don't know, Prime Pathogen A normally uses Prime Protein A, Mirror Pathogen A would require Mirror Pathogen A. Is it possible for a host to have a Prime Protein B that meets Mirror Pathogen A's requirement–perhaps not perfectly, but "good enough" to sustain Mirror Pathogen A?

Possible but, when looking specifically at the hypothetical "mirror" biology, less likely and probably would require specialized adaptations. The main problem that they would need to overcome, which is rather uncommon in known life is the mirrored shape of important biological molecules. Specifically, amino acids and sugars.

Both of these types molecules have a property known as "chirality", where the atoms in the molecule can be oriented in two ways, while still all being bonded to the same neighbors. These are known as enantiomers and designated with the prefixes "levo" ("l-"), meaning left, and "dextro" ("d-"), meaning right. Biology as we know it is very specialized to make use of l-amino acids and d-sugars. There are some exceptions but they tend to be rather specialized and less energetically favorable.

Some organisms can break down d-amino acids and use their atoms as nitrogen sources to build new l-amino acids. It is much, much more common, however, to use l-amino acids from either the host cells or their proteins. This takes the pathogen far less energy to accomplish as well as not requiring evolving specialized enzymes that most organisms don't have.

So, in the case of the mirror pathogen, it would have to have the ability and dedicate the energy to breakdown l-amino acids to build its d-amino acids. This would, indeed, likely result in slower growth rate. That, in itself, has a lot of potential to limit pathogenicity as high growth rate is generally required to be problematic. Phagocytes will still try to envelope and remove foreign objects that they don't "think" are alive, so, the mirror pathogen could face risk of excretion if it is not able to reproduce quickly enough to maintain a population.

So, overall, yes, hypothetically possible and even plausible (if the mirror organisms are able to metabolize d-sugars and l-amino acids) but less likely. Pathogenicity requires the ability to grow a population fast enough or otherwise evade the immune system which is also able act on "invaders" that it does not recognize as biological (maybe being really good at building a bioplaque that makes it difficult to move or use of toxins). Simply having mirrored chemistry alone is probably insufficient to evade the immune system enough to be pathogenic.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thank you so much for taking the time and effort to answer my question and helping me understand this (or at least understand it better). The world is fascinating!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

You're very welcome! The world is absolutely incredible and there is so much to learn about everything. I love it :D