This protein seems to not only protect the animal from radiation but also it may help the inner structures to recover from damage.
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The Tokyo scientists explain that the protein-coated DNA, found only in tardigrades when they sequenced the Ramazzottius varieornatus’s genome, help protect the species’ DNA from radiation exposure and fix any damage done, reports CSMonitor.
Tardigrades are strangely adorable microscopic creatures that are capable of withstanding some of the worst that nature can throw at them.
The protective power of Dsup is just the first of what of what scientists expect to be many revelations in the wake of the sequencing of the water bear’s genome. The researchers gave the protein a simple name – Dsup, short for Damage Suppressor.
Tardigrades, also known as water bears, have survived conditions that would kill nearly any other organism – including the vacuum of space, rehydration, and absolute zero temperatures. The study has been done at the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School of Science.
They have 8 legs (4 pairs) and each leg has 4 to 8 claws that resemble the claws of a bear. The water bearers can be weighed as small as only the size of a grain of sand.
Tardigrades have been around for 530 million years and outlived the dinosaurs. These micro-animals are durable enough to live in the vacuum of space, if they found themselves in such a situation. X-ray induced damage in the human cells with Dsup was suppressed by about 40 percent, which even though a lot lower than the resilience of tardigrades, is significant.
Incredibly, the protein protected the cells against X-rays, raising interesting questions about the potential use of tardigrade genes in human medicine.
‘To our great surprise, when we checked the cells under the microscope some time later, their shape and number had changed significantly, far beyond our expectations’. This would help to explain why tardigrades are seemingly impervious to radiation, and why they can survive the vacuum of space.
The image shows the tardigrade in both the hydrated (left) and dehydrated state.
For the study, the researchers conducted a genetic analysis of Ramazzottius variornatus, which is considered to be the toughest and most resilient species of tardigrades. “While researchers have always been fascinated by their resilience, we still don’t really know how it’s possible”.
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Scientists from the University of Tokio published this original investigation called “Extremotolerant tardigrade genome and improved radiotolerance of cultured human cells by tardigrade-unique protein” studied where they studied different species of tardigrades and made the sequence of the genome of a variety that has never been investigated before. He says that tardigrades might have molecules that can make them withstand such extreme conditions that researchers still need to discover.
