Completely shattered and can still be reborn? There is something so resilient on earth? Yes, there is only one in the world, it is a sponge, the kind of dishwashing. Of course, the majority of those lying in your bathroom or kitchen belong to artificial sponges, we are talking about wild sponges here.
Amazing ability to regenerate
Before the emergence of artificial sponges, wild sponges are indeed used to brush dishes, this unimpressive creature, but has a super general ability to break reborn.
This ability of sponges was first documented in 1907 by H.V. Wilson, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Wilson found that when the environment deteriorated and large parts of the sponge died, cells from certain parts of the sponge would gather into clumps. If these clumps of cells are transplanted to the right place, they will redevelop into sponges. This clump of cells can be restored to its original shape even if it is broken up.
Wilson also found that if different species of bulk sponge cells were mixed together, they would first separate individually according to species and then coalesce again. In other words, the sponge cells know who is their own and who is an outsider, and the eyes of the thief pull sharply.
Later research on sponges revealed that sponges gather by a chemical signal called aggregation factor. The aggregation factor is also an important basis for sponges to distinguish between self and other.
According to Wikipedia, the scientific name of sponges is Porifera (English name: Porifera), also known as Spongia (Spongiatia or Spongia), a primitive class of multicellular organisms.
lamella sponges
Sponges do not have a neuron/nervous system, digestive and circulatory systems; instead, they mostly rely on seawater flowing through their bodies to obtain food and oxygen and eliminate waste, like a water filter in the ocean floor.
Because of their plant-like shape and roots in the seafloor, sponges were considered plants for thousands of years, but they were later found to have almost all the most basic animal characteristics, so they were not classified as animals until the mid-nineteenth century.
Recently, however, based on more evidence from genomic information and phylogeny, the debate on whether they should remain in the animal kingdom or become a separate kingdom is still ongoing in the biological community.
Some argue that calling them “animals” is a misnomer because sponges do not move as adults. Most sponges secrete silica or calcium carbonate to form skeletons that help them adhere to the sea floor. Because they can’t move, sponges live mainly by filtering organic matter from the water and are filter feeders. Another more than 170 species of sponges, such as branching sponges (Cladorhizidae) are carnivorous and can lure and capture small animals.
Although sponges do not have organs, they have cells in their bodies that perform similar functions.
In the animal kingdom, sponges have a unique type of cell, the choanocytes. The collar cells are flagellated, just like some bacteria.
Using the flagellum, the collar cell can stir the seawater to form a current, thus filtering and swallowing the particles in the water. In other words, the collar cells function like the hands and mouth of a sponge. Relying on the collar cells, a 1 cm3 sponge can filter can filter 20 liters of water per day.
The cells of sponges not only perform the tasks of organs, but also have a superpower: all sponge cells can switch roles under certain conditions, which is also unique in the animal kingdom. Biologists call this superpower totipotency (totipotency). With the help of this stem cell-like superpower, sponges can recover after breaking into pieces.
In addition, the cells in their bodies can travel around the body. Some sponges use this ability to repair injured parts, and some sponges use the swimming cells to slowly crawl on the sea floor.
Drug-making ability
In addition to omnipotent differentiation, another superpower of sponges is their ability to make medicine.
For many creatures, sponges are super toxic. It is easy to understand that, because they cannot move, sponges must have a set of chemical weapons to defend themselves against predators and to communicate.
Some sponges release toxins that “dissolve” the calcium carbonate of corals that have taken over their territory. Some sponges can also kill coral polyps. For example, the coral polyps of button coral parasitize the sponge Trikentrion flabelliformis. To combat the coral polyps, the sponge produces the toxin trikentrins, which researchers have since discovered not only kill coral polyps, but also have antibiotic properties that kill gram-positive bacteria such as Bacillus subtilis.
For humans, however, a number of molecules made by the sponge can treat human diseases and therefore have high medicinal value. For example, discodermolide (round skin sponge lactone) is an anti-tumor molecule, and avarol, a molecule isolated from the greedy sponge (Dysidea avara), can treat psoriasis.
Since sponges can recover after being pulverized and have a high medicinal value, they should be suitable for pharmaceutical use.
In fact, only a few sponge molecules are currently being commercialized, and the biggest difficulty is the lack of sponge supply.
First of all, although sponges have good recovery ability, they grow slowly. Moreover, some of the bioactive substances from sponges are very low in content, and to purify them, sponges must be farmed intensively on a large scale. However, the cultivation of sponges with medicinal value in laboratories and pharmaceutical plants is another matter.
Secondly, most sponges live in symbiosis with microorganisms, and lacking certain microorganisms, they cannot make the molecules needed by humans. But in the case of intensive farming, the use of antibiotics and drugs is almost a given, and these drugs affect more than just the sponges, they may also kill the symbiotic microorganisms. This is one of the major difficulties of sponge farming on a large scale.
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