Human-Protist Symbiotic Experiment
The man who could digest wood!
We all have one, don't we? A favorite protist. One protozoa out of them all that just stands out in our minds as THE protozoa, the one that captures our imagination and intrigues us to no end. Well, I must say that personally I have a list of about five protozoa that are at the top, but one has just recently topped them all: Triconympha. Oh yes, Paramecium with his 'oral groove' and cilia-covered body is amazing to behold as he swims about sucking his smaller cousins into his gullet; and Euglena...wow, a pioneer in the protista kingdom, blurring the line between plant and animal in a very politically incorrect manner. But Triconympha is my all time favorite as of late because, through MUCH experimentation, I have finally succeeded in breeding a strain that can survive in the stomach of a human being! Namely, me. You may be thinking "gross", or "wtf?!?", but allow me to elucidate. Triconympha has been a long time symbiotic partner of our little-loved friend the termite. He lives in his stomach and does Mr. Termite the favor of digesting the wood that termite eats. I learned this in sixth grade, and from that moment onward it has been a constant source of meditatory food for me as I marveled at how perfect their relationship was. I also longed to have that same kind of relationship with Triconympha. But alas! My gastric crib was quite inhospitable to the little guy! Every time I munched a sunflower seed (and ate the hulls, as is my habit), I longed to be able to receive not only the benefit of the huge amount of roughage the hulls provided me, but also the nutritional sustenance that I KNEW was locked in their, too! The only way I could do this would be by having my own personal colony of Triconympha living, breeding, and dying within me. Hence the experimentation that has led to my success!
I'm no gene splicer myself, so I relied on the gene splicing that's built into every living thing: reproduction. Since these little guys are single celled, they don't actually exchange genetic material during reproduction, but simply divide in half, producing two from one. So what I had to do was find individual specimens that exhibited unusually high tolerance to travel through my gut and intestinal tract. Once I had found several such specimens, I would give them time to multiply into yet another thriving colony, then perform another iteration of the "gut travel" procedure, until finally I had a thriving colony that were perfectly at home inside of ME! The entire process took about five years. At the rate that Triconympha reproduces, that actually equates to about four thousand years of evolution in human terms. I acting as the "natural selection" mechanism managed to guide them into exactly what I wanted them to be. Following are a few details of the experiment as it progressed, for your entertainment value.
Step one: Establish a thriving colony.
Where does one find a starter colony of Triconympha? Inside the stomachs of termites, of course! That is their natural habitat, and so that is where I went. Several days of searching the uninhabited lands around my subdivision resulted in the collection of thousands of donor termites. Now, how to extract the Triconympha...hmmm. Well, the first obvious approach was to just grind a bunch of termites to mush and hope the Triconympha could find their own way out. Microscopic examination revealed that, although the Triconympha were indeed emancipated from their gastric domains, they didn't do so well on the outside. What I needed then was some way of emulating a termite's stomach environment, only on a larger scale than the termite itself. Something maintainable, and preferably non-decaying. So, I determined the PH of the termite's stomach content and through a combination of white distilled vinegar, non-iodized salt, and distilled water, produced a solution with an equivalent PH; I produced what looked to be an approximate substitute for decaying wood chewed and swallowed by a termite by combining sawdust from sawing old wood with a diluted solution of off-the-shelf hydrochloric acid and my own saliva. Yep, that is gross, BUT it was precisely what the doctor ordered. I didn't know it at the time, but it was ALSO the first step in producing Triconympha that were acclimatized to the human body as a host. As a matrix in which to combine the "stomach juices" and "food", I used a sterile, non-lubricated or powdered surgical glove. A small piece of new sponge was sealed up in the opening of the glove so that a free exchange of gases could take place. I know, I know, the danger of microbial invasion existed at that point due to the fact that the sponges pores are monstrous compared to the tiny openings that serve to exchange gases and nutrition within the mucous membranes of a termite, but it never seemed to be a factor in my experiments. I got lucky on that one. Now, with the glove prepared, I tossed in a pre-measured amount of freshly ground termites and let the process begin. After three days I did a microscopic examination of the contents and found that the Triconympha were doing absolutely marvelous. I measured the PH again and found that adding the termite bodies had lowered it a bit, so I created a new matrix that had a slightly higher PH prior to the addition of the termites. That one, after three days, had a colony of Triconympha that were multiplying like crazy. I had found the magic balance and was ready now to set up the endurance test.
Step two: Endurance testing.
Now, how to find out which of these little buggers would be most prone to live in MY gut? I decided to gradually alter the environment of the matrices towards the environment of my own gullet. But what was that environment? I could look it up online, the PH of my stomach...but to be even more accurate, I had to measure it myself. I won't go into the gory details, but I did measure the PH of my OWN stomach and found it to be about actually a bit higher than the averages: I'm a 3.5. This actually made it a little easier for me since the PH of a termite's stomach is around 4.3. I set up ten test matrices, and decreased each of their PH by .1 every four days. Just prior to decreasing the PH, I would do a culture exam to see who was thriving and who wasn't. As soon as I saw a decrease of between 10 and 15% of active Triconympha, I would cease the PH adjustment schedule, remove a small sample of Triconympha from that matrix, and place them into a matrix that was .2 PH higher than what they had just come from. That culture would be allowed to grow for two weeks, after which the PH decrease regimen would begin again. Eventually, I had seven colonies of Triconympha who were living, breeding, and thriving in a PH of 3.5, which put me at the precipice of the final step in my experiment.
Final Step: Introducing The Colony to Doug Boude.
While I left the seven colonies to thrive, I now proceeded to do some preliminary wood digestion experiments on myself with which to compare results after introduction of the protozoa to my gut. Since sunflower seed hulls had been the catalyst for the experiment in the first place, I used them. Again, I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that the process involved eating a pre-measured amount of sunflower seeds on an empty stomach, then closely monitoring and collecting appropriate stool samples for examination. As you may have envisioned (he he he he he), without Triconympha present, all I got was a neatly packaged lump of chewed sunflower seed hulls, with a slightly malodiferous disposition. I then introduced Triconympha into my stomach. It was an early Sunday morning. I filled three sterile gelatin capsules with samples from three of the matrices, and swallowed them down with a distilled water chaser. I then quickly ate a pre-measured amount of sunflower seeds, and waited. Although I thought I could imagine feeling the little guys working in my stomach, all I really felt was a bit hungry. Hours passed. I believe this was the first time ever I was actually giddy with anticipation at taking a poo. Finally, late that night, nature called. The results were astounding! The amount of fibrous hull present in my stool was a mere 5% of what it had been prior to Triconympha's introduction! The remainder of the mass more closely resembled what you might consider a "normal" poo consistency and texture, and with the same essence about it. Microscopic examination of the stool sample revealed some dead trace representation of Triconympha, but not nearly enough to indicate a complete evacuation of the critters. As a final test to conclude that they guys had indeed taken up residence within me, I forced myself to vomit. You guessed it: There under the microscope, within my own vomit, were living, swimming, happy Triconympha. SUCCESS!
So now I do believe that I'm the only living human being who has the benefit of being able to receive sustenance from the consumption of wood. Pretty cool, eh?
Doug out.
I'm no gene splicer myself, so I relied on the gene splicing that's built into every living thing: reproduction. Since these little guys are single celled, they don't actually exchange genetic material during reproduction, but simply divide in half, producing two from one. So what I had to do was find individual specimens that exhibited unusually high tolerance to travel through my gut and intestinal tract. Once I had found several such specimens, I would give them time to multiply into yet another thriving colony, then perform another iteration of the "gut travel" procedure, until finally I had a thriving colony that were perfectly at home inside of ME! The entire process took about five years. At the rate that Triconympha reproduces, that actually equates to about four thousand years of evolution in human terms. I acting as the "natural selection" mechanism managed to guide them into exactly what I wanted them to be. Following are a few details of the experiment as it progressed, for your entertainment value.
Step one: Establish a thriving colony.
Where does one find a starter colony of Triconympha? Inside the stomachs of termites, of course! That is their natural habitat, and so that is where I went. Several days of searching the uninhabited lands around my subdivision resulted in the collection of thousands of donor termites. Now, how to extract the Triconympha...hmmm. Well, the first obvious approach was to just grind a bunch of termites to mush and hope the Triconympha could find their own way out. Microscopic examination revealed that, although the Triconympha were indeed emancipated from their gastric domains, they didn't do so well on the outside. What I needed then was some way of emulating a termite's stomach environment, only on a larger scale than the termite itself. Something maintainable, and preferably non-decaying. So, I determined the PH of the termite's stomach content and through a combination of white distilled vinegar, non-iodized salt, and distilled water, produced a solution with an equivalent PH; I produced what looked to be an approximate substitute for decaying wood chewed and swallowed by a termite by combining sawdust from sawing old wood with a diluted solution of off-the-shelf hydrochloric acid and my own saliva. Yep, that is gross, BUT it was precisely what the doctor ordered. I didn't know it at the time, but it was ALSO the first step in producing Triconympha that were acclimatized to the human body as a host. As a matrix in which to combine the "stomach juices" and "food", I used a sterile, non-lubricated or powdered surgical glove. A small piece of new sponge was sealed up in the opening of the glove so that a free exchange of gases could take place. I know, I know, the danger of microbial invasion existed at that point due to the fact that the sponges pores are monstrous compared to the tiny openings that serve to exchange gases and nutrition within the mucous membranes of a termite, but it never seemed to be a factor in my experiments. I got lucky on that one. Now, with the glove prepared, I tossed in a pre-measured amount of freshly ground termites and let the process begin. After three days I did a microscopic examination of the contents and found that the Triconympha were doing absolutely marvelous. I measured the PH again and found that adding the termite bodies had lowered it a bit, so I created a new matrix that had a slightly higher PH prior to the addition of the termites. That one, after three days, had a colony of Triconympha that were multiplying like crazy. I had found the magic balance and was ready now to set up the endurance test.
Step two: Endurance testing.
Now, how to find out which of these little buggers would be most prone to live in MY gut? I decided to gradually alter the environment of the matrices towards the environment of my own gullet. But what was that environment? I could look it up online, the PH of my stomach...but to be even more accurate, I had to measure it myself. I won't go into the gory details, but I did measure the PH of my OWN stomach and found it to be about actually a bit higher than the averages: I'm a 3.5. This actually made it a little easier for me since the PH of a termite's stomach is around 4.3. I set up ten test matrices, and decreased each of their PH by .1 every four days. Just prior to decreasing the PH, I would do a culture exam to see who was thriving and who wasn't. As soon as I saw a decrease of between 10 and 15% of active Triconympha, I would cease the PH adjustment schedule, remove a small sample of Triconympha from that matrix, and place them into a matrix that was .2 PH higher than what they had just come from. That culture would be allowed to grow for two weeks, after which the PH decrease regimen would begin again. Eventually, I had seven colonies of Triconympha who were living, breeding, and thriving in a PH of 3.5, which put me at the precipice of the final step in my experiment.
Final Step: Introducing The Colony to Doug Boude.
While I left the seven colonies to thrive, I now proceeded to do some preliminary wood digestion experiments on myself with which to compare results after introduction of the protozoa to my gut. Since sunflower seed hulls had been the catalyst for the experiment in the first place, I used them. Again, I won't go into the gory details, but suffice it to say that the process involved eating a pre-measured amount of sunflower seeds on an empty stomach, then closely monitoring and collecting appropriate stool samples for examination. As you may have envisioned (he he he he he), without Triconympha present, all I got was a neatly packaged lump of chewed sunflower seed hulls, with a slightly malodiferous disposition. I then introduced Triconympha into my stomach. It was an early Sunday morning. I filled three sterile gelatin capsules with samples from three of the matrices, and swallowed them down with a distilled water chaser. I then quickly ate a pre-measured amount of sunflower seeds, and waited. Although I thought I could imagine feeling the little guys working in my stomach, all I really felt was a bit hungry. Hours passed. I believe this was the first time ever I was actually giddy with anticipation at taking a poo. Finally, late that night, nature called. The results were astounding! The amount of fibrous hull present in my stool was a mere 5% of what it had been prior to Triconympha's introduction! The remainder of the mass more closely resembled what you might consider a "normal" poo consistency and texture, and with the same essence about it. Microscopic examination of the stool sample revealed some dead trace representation of Triconympha, but not nearly enough to indicate a complete evacuation of the critters. As a final test to conclude that they guys had indeed taken up residence within me, I forced myself to vomit. You guessed it: There under the microscope, within my own vomit, were living, swimming, happy Triconympha. SUCCESS!
So now I do believe that I'm the only living human being who has the benefit of being able to receive sustenance from the consumption of wood. Pretty cool, eh?
Doug out.
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Re: Human-Protist Symbiotic Experiment
I came across this entry while preparing for a lab. Two things:
1. You have got to be kidding me!
2. How are they doing now?
1. You have got to be kidding me!
2. How are they doing now?
Posted by kerri-ann bennett on January 23, 2008 at 8:20 PM