Dividing E. coliPUBLIC HEALTH IMAGE LIBRARY, JANICE HANEY CARR
Do bacteria age? Most biology textbooks will say that they don’t. However, research challenged that view for the first time in 2005, and a debate has ensued over the past 6 years. But a new model, published today (October 27) in Current Biology, re-examines earlier experiments and suggests that aging may have evolved early on as a mechanism that protects new generations from damages accrued by the parent.
When researchers look at aging in another single-celled organism, budding yeast, it's easy to see that cell division is asymmetrical, with a large parent producing offspring that are much smaller in size. (The second, larger cell that results from cell division is still considered the parent.) Asymmetry in division is an important aspect of aging because it ...
