Henneguya salminicola: First Animal that doesn’t Need Oxygen to Live

An international team of researchers has found a multicellular animal with no mitochondrial DNA, making it the only known animal to exist without the need to breathe oxygen.

Henneguya salminicola

• The study discovered Henneguya salminicola, a microscopic, parasitic member of the group Myxozoa that infects salmons. The researchers sequenced the DNA of H. salminicola tissue and found no mitochondrial DNA at all.
• H. salminicola did have structures that resembled mitochondria but they were not capable of producing the enzymes needed for respiration- the process which produces molecules called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is used by the multicellular organisms to power cellular ....