Wissenschaftler fügten Bakterien in Pilze ein und die Pilze setzten ihren Lebenszyklus fort und produzierten bakterienhaltige Sporen. Das Experiment liefert Hinweise darauf, wie komplexes Leben sich entwickelt haben könnte und wie Zellmerkmale wie Mitochondrien und Chloroplasten vor einer Milliarde Jahren entstanden sein könnten.

I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

Inducing novel endosymbioses by implanting bacteria in fungi

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08010-x

From the linked article:

Is this how complex life evolved? Experiment that put bacteria inside fungi offers clues

Biologists created a symbiotic system that hints at how cell features such as mitochondria and chloroplasts might have emerged a billion years ago.

Scientists wielding a minute hollow needle — and a bike pump — have managed to implant bacteria into a larger cell, creating a relationship similar to those that sparked the evolution of complex life.

The feat — described1 in Nature on 2 October — could help researchers to understand the origins of pairings that gave rise to specialized organelles called mitochondria and chloroplasts more than one billion years ago.

Yet delivering bacterial cells into the fungi, which have thick cell walls that maintain a high internal pressure, was a challenge. After piercing the wall with the needle, the researchers used a bicycle pump — and later an air compressor — to maintain enough pressure to deliver the bacteria.

After overcoming the initial shock of surgery, the fungi continued their life cycles and produced spores, a fraction of which contained bacteria. When these spores germinated, bacteria were also present in the cells of the next generation of fungi. This showed that the new endosymbiosis could be passed onto offspring — a key finding.