FRANCE: Could a new identified protein be responsible for animals’ sense of direction and their ability to find their way around?
Scientists from Peking University thought so. They discovered tiny biological compasses – made from protein structures – in fruit flies that also appeared in pigeon, rat, whale, butterfly and human cells.
Here’s how it possibly works: the protein compasses align with the geomagnetic field lines of Earth, leading scientists to conclude that these internal compasses feed information into the animals’ nervous system for a direction-sensing ability.
Lead author Professor Cam Xie said this compass can likely serve as a universal “animal magnetoreception” mechanism, which enables a diverse range of animals to navigate with the aid of Earth’s magnetic field.
The Chinese research team screened the genome of the fruit fly and discovered MagR, a protein with a rod-like clump structure with cryptochrome (retinal) proteins. This cluster functions like a magnetic sensor that can sense the Earth magnetic field’s direction as well as inclination or intensity.
“The nanoscale biocompass has the tendency to align itself along geomagnetic field lines and to obtain navigation cues from a geomagnetic field,” explained Xie.
It used to be an unpopular belief that animals could sense the magnetic field of the planet. Now it has been established among a number of species, although the mystery lies in how the sensing happens.