The evolution from single-celled to multicellular organisms took millions of years, but the details are poorly understood. Although people have explored whether single-celled organisms are multicellular in previous studies, this does not provide a good understanding of the whole process of evolution. Recently, we have tried to domesticate mammalian cells through the process of reverse evolution, inducing the cells of multicellular organisms to evolve rapidly in the direction of single-celled organisms, and obtaining mammalian cells that only need to provide some basic nutrients and vitamins and have certain independent survival ability. For these autonomous cells with independent survivability, we analyzed the newly generated mutations during domestication. These findings may help us understand the details of how a single-celled organism evolved into a multicellular organism.
From multicellular to single-celled organism: cell domestication and rapid evolution