Microbes enlisted to carry tiny loads travel faster with cargo attached than on their own.
That’s the surprising finding of a study of the carrying capacity of single-cell amoebas. The microbes serve as prototypes of microscopic “trucks” for delivering drugs to precisely target disease inside the human body or moving material for minuscule construction projects (SN: 9/30/20).
Researchers tested the cargo capacity of the amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum with styrene balls ranging in size from 10 microns, roughly as big as a red blood cell, up to 90 microns. The balls spontaneously stuck to the backs of the microbes, which are themselves only about 10 microns across.
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