Symbiosis ~ The living together of unlike organisms

Anton deBary 1878

Studying inter-species symbiotic relationships offers insights into how hosts and symbionts interact and how these associations evolve. However, disentangling the biology of symbiotic organisms living in close contact is a challenging task because often one lives inside the other and both are dependent on the association for survival.

To robustly test these questions in symbiosis, we use a range of powerful methodological skill and tool-sets, ranging from microscopy, to cell biology, to next-gen sequencing and computational biology, to interrogate the host and symbiont simultaneously. 

3D confocal projection of wMel Wolbachia-infected (red=16S rRNA) Drosophila cell culture cells (JW18 cell line; green=microtubule-Jupiter:GFP). DNA is stained in blue (DAPI). S L Russell, unpublished data.

To robustly test these questions in symbiosis, we use a range of powerful methodological skill and tool-sets, ranging from microscopy, to cell biology, to next-gen sequencing and computational biology, to interrogate the host and symbiont simultaneously. Intracellular symbiosis, or endosymbiosis, is implicated in the origin of our own cell type, the Eukaryotic cell.

The endosymbiogenetic origin of mitochondria is revealed by their bacteria-like membrane features and independent genomes that are related to modern alphaproteobacteria. However, the event itself is hidden behind the event horizon of the last eukaryotic common ancestor. To study it, we must study modern endosymbioses.