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Protistology

How to build a microbial eye

Nature volume 523, pages 166–167 (2015)Cite this article

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Dissection of the subcellular eye of microorganisms called warnowiid dinoflagellates reveals that this structure is composed of elements of two cellular organelles — the plastid and the mitochondrion. See Letter p.204

The ancient Greek physician Galen described the key anatomical features of the eye1, including the retina, lens, cornea and iris. Yet arguably the first true understanding of how the vertebrate eye works came in the early seventeenth century, with mathematician Johannes Kepler's demonstration that vision occurs as an image projected on to the surface of the retina2. As such, an eye can be defined as a cornea and/or a lens that forms an aperture allowing light arising from a specific direction to pass on to a sensory surface that processes this signal into a chemical message. But animals were not the only organisms to evolve such systems — analogous structures and biochemical responses exist in cells of several eukaryotic microorganisms (cells that package most of their DNA in a nucleus), allowing these microbes to move in response to light3. On page 204 of this issue, Gavelis et al.4 describe the subcellular features that make up the eye-like structures of warnowiid dinoflagellates, which in anatomical terms are remarkably similar to vertebrate eyes.

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Figure 1: Eyes across the tree of life.

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Author notes

  1. Suely L. Gomes is in the Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo 05508-000, Brazil.

  2. sulgomes@iq.usp.br

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Thomas A. Richards is in the Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QD, UK.,

    Thomas A. Richards & Suely L. Gomes

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  1. Thomas A. Richards
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  2. Suely L. Gomes
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Correspondence to Thomas A. Richards or Suely L. Gomes.

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Richards, T., Gomes, S. How to build a microbial eye. Nature 523, 166–167 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14630

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