Frog skin cells turned themselves into living machines

This is pretty cool. Scientists removed blobs of skin cells from frog embryos and grew them separately. Surprisingly, the cells formed into balls and continued to grow, after about three days, the blobs began to swim around autonomously.

The scientists dubbed them xenobots. They propelled themselves using cilia frog skin cells typically have for repelling pathogens and spreading mucous around.

They have no brains or nerve cells but can swim down small tubes and push iron oxide particles around.

www.sciencenews.org...

Using blobs of skin cells from frog embryos, scientists have grown creatures unlike anything else on Earth, a new study reports. These microscopic “living machines” can swim, sweep up debris and heal themselves after a gash.

In a way, the bots were self-made. Scientists removed small clumps of skin stem cells from frog embryos, to see what these cells would do on their own. Separated from their usual spots in a growing frog embryo, the cells organized themselves into balls and grew. About three days later, the clusters, called xenobots, began to swim.

Normally, hairlike structures called cilia on frog skin repel pathogens and spread mucus around. But on the xenobots, cilia allowed them to motor around. That surprising development “is a great example of life reusing what’s at hand,” says study coauthor Michael Levin, a biologist at Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

And that process happens fast. “This isn’t some sort of effect where evolution has found a new use over hundreds of thousands of years,” Levin says. “This happens in front of your eyes within two or three days.”

Xenobots have no nerve cells and no brains. Yet xenobots — each about half a millimeter wide — can swim through very thin tubes and traverse curvy mazes. When put into an arena littered with small particles of iron oxide, the xenobots can sweep the debris into piles. Xenobots can even heal themselves; after being cut, the bots zipper themselves back into their spherical shapes.

Scientists are still working out the basics of xenobot life. The creatures can live for about 10 days without food. When fed sugar, xenobots can live longer (though they don’t keep growing). “We’ve grown them for over four months in the lab,” says study coauthor Doug Blackiston, also at Tufts. “They do really interesting things if you grow them,” including forming strange balloon-like shapes.

It’s not yet clear what sorts of jobs these xenobots might do, if any. Cleaning up waterways, arteries or other small spaces comes to mind, the researchers say. More broadly, these organisms may hold lessons about how bodies are built, Levin says.

Small clusters of skin cells taken from frog embryos grow into larger spheres, called xenobots (pictured), that can swim, move particles and heal themselves.


A swarm of xenobots (bright spots) swims around and pushes small particles.


This xenobot is about 500 micrometers across and is made of frog cells, even though it looks and acts nothing like an actual frog.

Long story short... they’re “cancer”... 🤔

a reply to: SwissMarked

They have an uncontrolled rate of reproduction?

a reply to: Phage

Yeah...I'm not following that comment myself...they don't seem to reproduce at all or even grow past the first three days. Pretty much the opposite of cancer in just about every way.

originally posted by: dug88
a reply to: Phage

Yeah...I'm not following that comment myself...they don't seem to reproduce at all or even grow past the first three days. Pretty much the opposite of cancer in just about every way.

I remember reaDING LONG AGO THAT THE NANOBOTS CREATD TO LINK AND CREAT BRAIN CONNECTIONS WERE LACKING ONLY IN SOMETHING THAT COULD MAKE PROPEL (WOOPS CAPS sorry) them!

a reply to: dug88

So its grown from stem cells?

They aren't reusing cilia. They are using it. This is like a reversion type of thing. This is what those ancient cells used to do. And what it reverts back to without the appropriate external stimuli.

Fascinating story

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

That's what it sounds like to me. Multicell organisms are more like a whole bunch of really tiny organisms working together than a singular being. Each kind of cell does it's own thing and somehow all those cells together make one big thing.

Life is endlessly fascinating.

a reply to: dug88

Wow! That is amazing... and in a strange way not surprising ..... perhaps another clue as to how evolution can work and even how life arose on Earth.... ( and elsewhere?) ... great stuff, and imagine the possible applications of xenobots..... could also make a great subject for a horror- sci-fi- story (imagine giant xenobots sweeping up human civilization) thank you for posting.

I have seen the Blob....

This will not turn out good

a reply to: dug88

They have no brains or nerve cells but can swim down small tubes and push iron oxide particles around.

Now that is interesting , Perhaps its just pure hard wired instinct propelling them just literal cell memory passed on from other cells.

Or perhaps in the absence of Nerve or brain cells the cells of frogs can mimic the actions of Nerve cells , It's theoretical seeing as how some Frogs are Asexual taking the form of male or Female when necessary perhaps even down to a cellular level.

I'd be interested in what frogs were used. Frog embryos can regrow their tails, and there are frogs that can regenerate lost limbs.

I'd be curious to see what happened if they did the same thing with other animals that have regenerative abilities.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: SwissMarked

They have an uncontrolled rate of reproduction?

cancer droids

a reply to: dug88

Does reading this make anybody else's skin crawl ?

Swimming down small tubes and pushing iron oxide particles around is probably quite innocuous under lab conditions but what happens when these blobs of iron oxide menaces are released into a natural environment?

a reply to: dug88

I think it speaks to a couple of things. First...as above, so below. Humans are a result of experiences. Each of us represents a unique set of experiences and decisions that shape how we think and behave. Stem cells seem to react based on experience. Or, rather, external stimuli. Which is the second thing this speaks to....how external stimuli shapes the expression of DNA.

I think they need to study these blobs a whole lot more. I also think they need to try it with different cell types to see if similar behaviors result. A frogs stem cells do this..what about a salamander? A mammal? A bird?

originally posted by: teapot
Swimming down small tubes and pushing iron oxide particles around is probably quite innocuous under lab conditions but what happens when these blobs of iron oxide menaces are released into a natural environment?

Or injected into a human body?

This research looks like it may have huge implications for the biosciences, regenerative and general medicine, engineered microorganisms for eco-frendly production and restoration, and even machine intelligence.

The revolutionary implication is that something analogous to software programming is responsible for orchestrating the creation of an organism's morphology. This is mediated by electrical signalling from the cells. Michael Levin explains that this means many of the medical interventions currently attempted with drugs, or more recently, genetically, could be more effectively achieved by cracking the body's bioelectric code. Genetic manipulation, by analogy, is like programming at machine code level. As the cells already run a higher level code for building the body's components, it is potentially much simpler and safer to work with that.

Explained in Michael Levin's TED Talk