A genetic monster

A gargantuan bacterium carries tens of thousands of copies of its genome, researchers have found.

One species of the cigar-shaped bacterium Epulopiscium lives in the intestines of the unicornfish Naso tonganus, and can grow to more than half a millimetre in length. Esther Angert of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and her colleagues have found that Epulopiscium cells also contain up to 250 picograms of DNA, compared with a human cell's 6 picograms, and have 50,000–120,000 copies of genes believed to occur only once in each genome.

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