How the Zergs were Made

Chapter 6 Virulent Phages

From the moment he regained his thinking, Huo Gu was at a disadvantage, because single-cell clusters had no 'vision' and were very passive.

Only when those foreign cells come into contact with the single-cell cluster, can Huo Gu learn of the existence of the other party.

If the original human body is fine, even if there is no vision, you can still judge the surrounding objects by feeling the direction of the liquid flow through the neural network of the skin.

But the problem is that the single-cell cluster that Huo Gu currently hosts is too simple, so this kind of thing is also difficult to do.

To defend against those external threats, Hogu can only resort to passive defense, and the key to this passive defense lies in the cell wall.

"The main attack method of bacteriophages is infection. Immediately afterwards, doves occupy the magpie's nest, and in the parasitic cells, they replicate a large number of their daughters. After reaching a certain number, they destroy the cell membrane and cell wall from the inside to the outside in various ways... "

"So...the key to defending against this kind of enemy lies in the initial infection stage. As long as this link is destroyed, those guys will have nothing to do with me for the time being."

Thus, a question was posed in front of Huogu—how should it destroy the infection stage of the phage?

The key to defending against phages lies in the cell wall. However, this is only Huogu's rough idea, and the specific details have not yet been figured out.

"The original mild phage was in the form of injection, bypassing the cell membrane responsible for defense, and implanting its own genes into single cells..."

"If the cell wall is thick enough and the gaps are small enough to allow only small molecular mass substances to enter and exit, um, in this case, it can play a very good defensive role."

With a general direction, it was much faster to supplement the details. Huogu didn't expend much energy to finalize the travel of the cell wall.

Suddenly, Huo Gu thought of something.

"Wait! If, like some influenza viruses, they intentionally destroy their own protein shells, directly deliver gene fragments, and bypass the small molecule gaps in the cell wall..."

"Only the specialized type can exert the greatest effect. If the cell wall can also take into account the screening function, then the protective effect will be..."

Huo Gu's attention gradually shifted to the position of the cell membrane.

"The screening function is handed over to the cell membrane, and the defense work is handed over to the cell wall."

"If the cell wall can be broken through, then the defense of the cell membrane won't play a big role. After all, the 'combined type' is not as effective as the 'specialized type'."

In order to make a better comparison, Huogu detwisted and copied the part of the phage protein shell gene in the gene chain.

After a while, the empty shell of the phage protein appeared in front of Huogu.

"this……"

Hogu struggled when he saw the empty protein shell of the phage.

With the physical comparison, it discovered that the phage is very small. If the single cell as the host is a tall building, then the phage is the size of a human or a pet dog.

This is indeed very different from what it thinks.

"That is to say, the opening of the cell wall must be designed to the extent that only a single small molecule can pass through, so as to block the phage?"

At this time, another unexpected visitor met the single-cell cluster.

Just as Huogu was worried, the killer of the microbial world is a phage, and this time, God does not intend to continue to favor Huogu and this single-cell cluster.

After the gene fragment invaded the outermost single cell, the phage immediately declared its sovereignty over the parasitic cell, frantically transcribed its own gene, and produced a large number of phage genes and those protein shells.

Obviously, this is a virulent phage.

"Damn it!"

Huogu almost didn't yell, the parasite is a single cell connected by a protein structure, which means that it is impossible to immediately separate from the entire cell cluster like last time.

Not daring to hesitate any longer, Huogu immediately ordered the cells to divide and separate the infected single cells.

The division is not the single cell directly docked with the parasitic cell, but the cells at the edge of the entire area centered on the parasitic cell.

This is done just in case, the speed of individual separation in a single-cell cluster is the speed of single-cell replication. If the speed of self-replication of a single cell cannot keep up with the speed at which this group of phages break through the parasitic cells, then it is not enough to let the docked cells divide and isolate is meaningless behavior.

As a result of failure to dissociate, large areas, or even entire single-cell clusters, become infected.

Huogu couldn't afford to take such a risk.

The development of the situation, just as Hogu worried, was even worse, those virulent phages had already broken through the cell membrane of the parasitic cells, and infected other cells at an unimaginable speed.

At this time, the untwisting division of single cells is only halfway through.

Huogu's heart hung up, and he focused on the cells that were dividing.

In the past, those single cells whose division speed was not bad in his opinion, now seem to be slow to the speed of a tortoise.

"Hurry up... hurry up... hurry up..."

The attention was repeatedly moved between the cells and the phages, and Huo Gu was unconsciously chanting and urging the single cells that were dividing.

Time passed by like this.

I don't know if this kind of thought-like urging really had a certain effect, or it was just a coincidence that the single cell that was dividing was the first to complete the division, giving the entire single cell area to Separation and abandonment in the vast darkness, to avoid the second large-scale infection of virulent phages.

"This kind of thing can't be allowed to happen again, and the cell wall must be debugged as soon as possible."

Huo Gu, who has experienced this virulent phage crisis, has lingering fears, but at the same time, he is more eager to complete the cell wall that can resist phages.

After replenishing the cells in the missing part of the single-cell cluster, Hogu started to make the cell wall.

The thickness of the cell wall is not a problem, as long as the manufacture of the cell wall is repeated many times, a superimposed effect can be formed to increase the thickness of the cell wall.

The problem that bothers Huogu now is the permeability of the cell wall. This accidentally obtained cell wall is a tunnel for interacting with substances, which can accommodate several phages to enter and exit.

Obviously, this tunnel is too big, and this accidental cell wall can't do anything to resist those phages.

If it is a single one, it is fine, as long as it does not enter the tunnel, it can resist, but if it is facing a cluster of phages, it is almost inevitable that phages will enter the tunnel.

"We must find a way to shrink this tunnel."