[meteorite-list] Discovery of Tiniest Organim Could Have Huge Implications

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jun 21 14:25:09 2004
Message-ID: <200406211825.LAA24053_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2638143
    
Discovery of tiniest organism could have huge implications
      
Colleagues skeptical of space center scientist's nanobacteria

By ERIC BERGER
Houston Chronicle
June 21, 2004

They've deciphered DNA and cloned all manner of animals, but one
question still nags biologists working on the frontiers of life.

Just how small can a creature be and still be considered living?

The answer could provide more than fodder for academic debate. A better
grasp of the very smallest life forms could help doctors clear clogged
arteries and dissolve kidney stones with antibiotics, or even end the
argument over whether life once existed on Mars.

For a time, scientists believed tiny bacteria, just one-thousandth the
size of a grain of salt, represented the lower limit of size needed to
reproduce. Viruses are smaller but require a host cell to replicate.

Then, in 1998, a pair of scientists in Finland said they had found
something much smaller living in human kidneys. They called it
nanobacteria.

But rather than being a eureka moment for scientists Olavi Kajander and
Neva Ciftcioglu, now a researcher at Johnson Space Center, the discovery
initially generated blistering ridicule from colleagues who refused to
accept their research methods and disregarded their results.

Ever so slowly, however, opinions are beginning to change, says
Ciftcioglu, a Turkish-born microbiologist who's found the space center's
atmosphere more sympathetic to her research.

"This is a place full of open-minded people," she said.

In Houston, she's found refuge in the lab of another scientist,
geologist David McKay, who brazenly challenged the scientific
establishment in 1996, when he and his NASA research team claimed a
Martian meteorite contained fossilized bacteria.

Planetary scientists greeted McKay's claim of life on Mars with
skepticism, in part because his fossils were smaller than bacterial life
found on Earth.

Acceptance of nanobacteria as living creatures, with their size roughly
the same as the meteorite fossils, would be a boost to McKay's theory.
He recruited Ciftcioglu as a postdoctoral researcher and has given her
space for a new lab.

"Our interests overlap," he said. "We're both interested in proving that
size is no longer a limit on life."

The smallest, widely accepted bacteria measure about 300 nanometers
across, just enough space for a single cell to pack the DNA and other
ingredients needed to reproduce. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.

Ciftcioglu and Kajander studied individual particles of calcium-rich
mineral deposits in kidney stones. After stripping away the mineral
coating on the particles, they say they found small, cell-like
structures between 50 and 150 nanometers across. They also found that,
over time, the particles multiplied.

The implication was both startling and sweeping.

Kidney stones may be caused by a microorganism, one potentially
treatable with an antibiotic. Since then, researchers have also found
the particles within blocked arteries -- the No. 1 killer in the United
States.

Such an unexpected cause for such intensively studied ailments isn't
impossible, said George Bennett, a professor of biochemistry and cell
biology at Rice University, who notes that fewer than 1 percent of
disease-causing bacteria have been fully studied.

It wasn't until the 1980s, he said, that stomach ulcers were linked to
bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, lining the stomach. Soon after,
antibiotics replaced milk as the prescribed treatment.

But the scientific significance of confirmed nanobacteria would go well
beyond just finding a new bacterium. With widths of just 100 nanometers,
the cellular material needed for reproduction would have to be packed
incredibly tightly.

This is smaller than known existing bacteria, and much smaller than the
reasonable limit for life -- 250 nanometers -- set by a special National
Academy of Sciences workshop in 1998.

"It is a little difficult to imagine," Bennett said. "I do think it's
worthy of more study."

Not all microbiologists believe this. Many within the field liken
nanobacteria to a famously false scientific claim -- the
since-descredited discovery of cold fusion by researchers Martin
Fleischmann and Stanley Pons in 1989

"Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence," said
microbiologist Jack Maniloff, quoting astronomer Carl Sagan.

"The people who claim there are nanobacteria don't seem to understand
what they're saying is extraordinary," said Maniloff, of the University
of Rochester in New York. "Not only don't they have extraordinary
evidence, they don't have any scientifically acceptable evidence."

For starters, he said, the researchers need to publish a good picture.
The current photos only show "blobs," he said. If other scientists can
take clear images of the smaller viruses, similarly detailed pictures
ought to be taken of nanobacteria, both of the whole organism and of one
sliced in half.

But the most valid proof would come if Ciftcioglu or another scientist
could find material within the cell nucleus -- DNA, RNA or something new
-- that allows nanobacteria to replicate on its own. In most organisms,
RNA carries the genetic information encoded in DNA to the part of cells
where proteins are made. But scientists believe RNA can also store
genetic information and be an engine of reproduction on its own.

The casing of calcium-rich mineral that surrounds nanobacteria make them
difficult to cut into without destroying them, Ciftcioglu said.
Chemicals used to break through the mineral harm the nanobacteria.

She says Maniloff and other critics feel threatened by the possibility
of a life form that doesn't fit within an existing category such as
fungus, bacterium or virus.

"Microbiologists like to organize everything very precisely," she said.
"When you find something that does not fit into a category, you can be
named a charlatan."

Beyond their attacks on her scientific method, however, microbiologists
remain skeptical of Ciftcioglu and her colleague, Kajander, for another
reason. A company they created shortly after they announced their
finding of nanobacteria now sells a kit to test for its presence. It is
also developing an antibiotic to kill it.

It is not unusual for scientists who make discoveries to develop a
business based on their findings. But in this case, other
microbiologists say efforts by the company, now called Nanobac Life
Sciences, are premature because of a lack of evidence that nanobacteria
cause illness.

Ciftcioglu says the company was initially developed to provide cultures
of nanobacteria material to other researchers. Only after she and
Kajander sold their interests did it begin marketing tests for patients,
she said.

Yet she maintains a strong financial stake in the company. According to
officials with Nanobac, she received 5 million shares of stock, which is
traded over-the-counter, from the sale. The company says she is
"integral" to its future plans, and it will likely to fund her future
research.

Her claims have recently received a sizable, independent boost, though,
from research by scientists at the Mayo Clinic who hold no patents on
nanobacteria. The research, accepted for publication in a future issue
of the American Journal of Physiology: Heart and Circulatory Physiology,
offers tantalizing, independent evidence that nanobacteria replicate on
their own.

The article comes as Ciftcioglu is finding additional researchers to
study nanobacteria and, possibly, find the critical DNA or RNA that
allows it to replicate.

"The real question to me is, `What have the Mayo Clinic people really
found?'" asked George Fox, a professor of biology and biochemistry at
the University of Houston. "Personally, I don't have any reason to
believe it's true or untrue. But if it is true, it's incredibly important."

Fox, an RNA specialist, is considering working with Ciftcioglu, who also
is collaborating with other institutions to grow and understand
nanobacteria.

Ciftcioglu welcomes the help, saying she is weary from carrying the
nanobacteria mantle, surviving the personal attacks, the professional
attacks, and battling for funding.

With the renewed interest in nanobacteria among microbiologists, there
may finally be an answer to the mystery. There's no question which side
Ciftcioglu falls on.

"Nature," she said, "is full of surprises."
Received on Mon 21 Jun 2004 02:24:57 PM PDT