Biologists Just Invented Solar Powered Hamster Cells

How would you like it if you could recharge by sitting in the sun? The ability to use sunlight to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into oxygen and energy is traditionally the exclusive domain of plants and algae. However, now Japanese researchers have successfully created photosynthetic animal cells.

Biologists took chloroplasts—the parts of cells responsible for photosynthesis—from red algae and injected them into hamster cells. As a result, animal cells gain the ability to photosynthesize light. This achievement, detailed in a study published on October 31 in the journal Proceedings of the Japan Academy, challenges the assumption that combining chloroplasts with animal cells is impossible.

“To our knowledge, this is the first reported detection of photosynthetic electron transport in chloroplasts in animal cells,” said Sachihiro Matsunaga of the University of Tokyo, who co-authored the paper, in a University of Tokyo statement. Photosynthetic electron transport is the stage of photosynthesis that produces energy for a plant or algae.

“We thought that chloroplasts would be digested by animal cells within hours of being imported,” he added. “However, what we found is that they continue to work for up to two days, and that the electron transport of photosynthetic activity occurs.”

The researchers confirmed this by analyzing the chloroplast inside the hamster cells using many imaging techniques, and they used a method that uses light pulses to determine that the photosynthetic electron transport was actually happening. “We hypothesized that chloroplasts implanted in animal cells might remain stable and produce energy continuously outside of environmental conditions,” they wrote in the study.

While the idea of ​​solar powered animals is interesting, that’s not really the goal; the group’s vision for the use of this technology in the future is very practical. They suggest that “Planemals,” as they are called, can be integrated into tissue engineering. Lab-grown tissues sometimes struggle to grow due to lack of oxygen, which can be solved by introducing photosynthetic animal cells.

“Tissues grown in the lab, such as artificial organs, artificial meat and skin sheets, are made of many layers of cells. However, there is a problem that they cannot increase in size due to hypoxia (low oxygen levels) within the tissues, which prevents cell division,” explains Matsunaga. “By mixing the cells with chloroplasts, oxygen can be supplied to the cells through photosynthesis, with light rays, thus improving the conditions inside the tissue for growth.”

The researchers noticed that hamster cells implanted with chloroplasts also had a higher growth rate, indicating that the chloroplast transfers a carbon (fuel) source to the animal cells in addition to oxygen.

The team plans to continue their basic research on these “animal” cells. Who knows—maybe in the future, your houseplants won’t be the only ones soaking up the sun to thrive.