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Bioluminescence and Photoreception in Unicellular Organisms: Light-Signalling in a Bio-Communication Perspective

Bioluminescence, the emission of light catalysed by luciferases, has evolved in many taxa from bacteria to vertebrates and is predominant in the marine environment. It is now well established that in animals possessing a nervous system capable of integrating light stimuli, bioluminescence triggers v...

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Autores principales: Timsit, Youri, Lescot, Magali, Valiadi, Martha, Not, Fabrice
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8582858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34768741
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms222111311
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author Timsit, Youri
Lescot, Magali
Valiadi, Martha
Not, Fabrice
author_facet Timsit, Youri
Lescot, Magali
Valiadi, Martha
Not, Fabrice
author_sort Timsit, Youri
collection PubMed
description Bioluminescence, the emission of light catalysed by luciferases, has evolved in many taxa from bacteria to vertebrates and is predominant in the marine environment. It is now well established that in animals possessing a nervous system capable of integrating light stimuli, bioluminescence triggers various behavioural responses and plays a role in intra- or interspecific visual communication. The function of light emission in unicellular organisms is less clear and it is currently thought that it has evolved in an ecological framework, to be perceived by visual animals. For example, while it is thought that bioluminescence allows bacteria to be ingested by zooplankton or fish, providing them with favourable conditions for growth and dispersal, the luminous flashes emitted by dinoflagellates may have evolved as an anti-predation system against copepods. In this short review, we re-examine this paradigm in light of recent findings in microorganism photoreception, signal integration and complex behaviours. Numerous studies show that on the one hand, bacteria and protists, whether autotrophs or heterotrophs, possess a variety of photoreceptors capable of perceiving and integrating light stimuli of different wavelengths. Single-cell light-perception produces responses ranging from phototaxis to more complex behaviours. On the other hand, there is growing evidence that unicellular prokaryotes and eukaryotes can perform complex tasks ranging from habituation and decision-making to associative learning, despite lacking a nervous system. Here, we focus our analysis on two taxa, bacteria and dinoflagellates, whose bioluminescence is well studied. We propose the hypothesis that similar to visual animals, the interplay between light-emission and reception could play multiple roles in intra- and interspecific communication and participate in complex behaviour in the unicellular world.
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spelling pubmed-85828582021-11-12 Bioluminescence and Photoreception in Unicellular Organisms: Light-Signalling in a Bio-Communication Perspective Timsit, Youri Lescot, Magali Valiadi, Martha Not, Fabrice Int J Mol Sci Review Bioluminescence, the emission of light catalysed by luciferases, has evolved in many taxa from bacteria to vertebrates and is predominant in the marine environment. It is now well established that in animals possessing a nervous system capable of integrating light stimuli, bioluminescence triggers various behavioural responses and plays a role in intra- or interspecific visual communication. The function of light emission in unicellular organisms is less clear and it is currently thought that it has evolved in an ecological framework, to be perceived by visual animals. For example, while it is thought that bioluminescence allows bacteria to be ingested by zooplankton or fish, providing them with favourable conditions for growth and dispersal, the luminous flashes emitted by dinoflagellates may have evolved as an anti-predation system against copepods. In this short review, we re-examine this paradigm in light of recent findings in microorganism photoreception, signal integration and complex behaviours. Numerous studies show that on the one hand, bacteria and protists, whether autotrophs or heterotrophs, possess a variety of photoreceptors capable of perceiving and integrating light stimuli of different wavelengths. Single-cell light-perception produces responses ranging from phototaxis to more complex behaviours. On the other hand, there is growing evidence that unicellular prokaryotes and eukaryotes can perform complex tasks ranging from habituation and decision-making to associative learning, despite lacking a nervous system. Here, we focus our analysis on two taxa, bacteria and dinoflagellates, whose bioluminescence is well studied. We propose the hypothesis that similar to visual animals, the interplay between light-emission and reception could play multiple roles in intra- and interspecific communication and participate in complex behaviour in the unicellular world. MDPI 2021-10-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8582858/ /pubmed/34768741 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms222111311 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Timsit, Youri
Lescot, Magali
Valiadi, Martha
Not, Fabrice
Bioluminescence and Photoreception in Unicellular Organisms: Light-Signalling in a Bio-Communication Perspective
title Bioluminescence and Photoreception in Unicellular Organisms: Light-Signalling in a Bio-Communication Perspective
title_full Bioluminescence and Photoreception in Unicellular Organisms: Light-Signalling in a Bio-Communication Perspective
title_fullStr Bioluminescence and Photoreception in Unicellular Organisms: Light-Signalling in a Bio-Communication Perspective
title_full_unstemmed Bioluminescence and Photoreception in Unicellular Organisms: Light-Signalling in a Bio-Communication Perspective
title_short Bioluminescence and Photoreception in Unicellular Organisms: Light-Signalling in a Bio-Communication Perspective
title_sort bioluminescence and photoreception in unicellular organisms: light-signalling in a bio-communication perspective
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8582858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34768741
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms222111311
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