having two or more nucleus... is it better?

[baikuza]

when i look at Sphyrogira...(i hope i spell it correctly)
there are two nucleus in one cell.
my question is... is it a better way to live or to organize cell?

i hope i am not wrong to put this topic to this categorize

[shmolex]

The term "better" is rather subjective. Is it "better" to have 4 legs or 2 legs? It rather depends on the situation. From an energetic standpoint, it is not as efficient to have 2 nuclei as you would have to spend more energy in replicating the genetic material.

[mith]

Muscle cells have multiple nuclei too

[rg]

paramaecium has 2 nuclei...the macronucleus looks after somatic function of the cell and the micronucleus looks after reproduction ....hence there is a division of labour which can be efficient...but this certainly depends upon the situations in case of other animals.

[David Lennartz]

Stentor has upward of 6 macronuclei and numerous micronuclei....Vance Tartar often voiced the view that this multinoded form was advantageous for more efficiently controlling the many actiivties of this cell (over 800 micrometers long!) and also enabled Stentor to have remarkable regeneration abilities

David Lennartz

[thanos00]

It depends on the environment around the organism using the double nuclei cell. Having two nuclei means using more energy, but since the 2-nuclei cell organisms still exist this must be an evolutionary advantage (for the specififc organism).

[rye]

i also agree with all of you. it depend on the function of the cell. mostly have only single nuclei. but certain cell can have more than 2 such as paramesium sp and certain cell such as blood cell dont have any nuclei. it because blood cell need to maximize their space for carring the maximum quantity of oxygen.

[herb386]

I think paramecium has an advantage through having two nuclei as they are both very specialised to their tasks. One is transcriptionally silent and is only involved in reproduction and the other one is specialised for efficient transcription. When the nuclei divide one of them continues to replicate until it has about 1000 copies of the genome. It also deletes large areas of hetrochromatin and non coding regions so it is able to transcribe large amounts of RNA very quickly.

Very long cells like those found in some fungi have multiple nuclei because it would take forever (and lots of energy) to transport proteins and/or RNA from the nucleus to where they are needed in the cell. By having more nuclei spread around the cell you dont get this problem. I think this is why neural cells don't regenerate very well as they are very long but have only one nucleus.

It definitely depends on the function of the cell so for some cells it is better to have one nucleus and for others it is better to have more (or none).

[Mjhavok]

when i look at Sphyrogira...(i hope i spell it correctly)
there are two nucleus in one cell.
my question is... is it a better way to live or to organize cell?

i hope i am not wrong to put this topic to this categorize

I can only answer this by saying at some point it must have been better for sphyrogira to have two nucleus.

I thought Spirogyra had only one nucleus, are you sure that it wasn't just a trick of the eye. Could it have been to cells overlapping each other?

[damien james]

And some slime mold have hundreds of nuclei with no defined cell wall. That is just how they evolved.

[mkwaje]

uhh.. hmmm... I was thinking if the organism is Spirogyra, (an algae), Im not familiar with Sphyrogira though. If it is indeed Spirogyra having multi nucleated cells, it could be because it did not form a septum (or wall) in between the cells during asexual reprproduction. Similar to your Rhizopus, common bread mold, it may appear as having numerous nuclei in a cell; well in fact it merely failed to develop a wall in between cells. They say this is useful in transferring nutrients between cells but then I know little about it to make a useful comment.

hope it helps.

[mkwaje]

Additional comment:

Is it Spirogyra, the one with the helical green filamentous structures? The most prominent structures in it are the chloroplasts and the nuclei are really not that observable; its possible that you have mistaken the chloroplasts for nuclei; some overlapping cells may lead to the appearance of dark overlapping chloroplasts. Its also difficult to see the nuclei in unstained Spirogyra samples using a light microscope.