Scientists have revealed that animals known as placozoans may be responsible for formation of neurons of all species on the planet.
These beings have been on Earth for 800 million years and represent a complex marine species that presents important evolutionary data.
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A relentless search for the origins of neurological cells gained new momentum with the identification of these creatures.
Placozoans have no organs and are millimetric animals with a bubble appearance. Yours survival It is achieved through peptidergic cells, which consume algae and microbes from stone surfaces.
According to zoologist Eduardo Bessa, they feed on decomposing organic matter and live spread across the oceans.
In fact, it was the cells of these animals that generated the interest of researchers, due to their ability to direct the movement and feeding of placozoans.
“Cells are the fundamental units of life, so understanding how they arise or change over time is crucial to explain the evolutionary history of life”, commented Arnau Sebé-Pedros, one of the authors of the research and leader of the Regulation Center Genomics.
The researchers performed molecular analyzes to determine how cells in these animals develop and resemble other elements traced in studies on the formation of our ancestors.
(Image: Bernd Schierwater, CC BY 4.0/Wikimedia Commons/Reproduction)
The first step of the research involved creating a map to identify all the cells. Afterwards, they were organized into different groups, according to the function they perform in the placozoan system.
Apparently, nine types of cells are connected by other “intermediate” cells that play the role of transmission.
In addition to these, “14 types of peptidergic cells from placozoans that express neuronal genes were found”. This was the discovery that impressed researchers, as such cells were only identified in other species millions of years later.
These cells do not exist in other early-branching animals, such as sea sponges, making them unique to placozoans.
Peptidergic cells have many characteristics similar to primitive neuronal cells, as they are responsible for sending signals through the pre-synaptic structure.
Furthermore, the study identified that placozoans are the only animals that had this cellular system 800 million years ago. According to evolutionary analysis, this formation is similar to the first neurons of ancestral animals, as mentioned previously.
Even so, researchers claim that the evolution of neurons is still a complex study that requires many studies on the formation of ancestral animals.
In any case, the article that was published in the scientific journal Cell, in September 2023, expands the understanding of other animals, as well as the Earth's evolutionary process.