Skip to main content

Water Bears and Radiotolerance in Human Cells

During my junior year of high school I had the opportunity to take a class on Biotechnology. My professor had many pictures around his room of a species called tardigrades. They are also more commonly known as "water bears". Ever since learning their unique properties, I have been fascinated with learning more about them. The article "Extremotolerant tardigrade genome and improved radiotolerance of human cultured cells by tardigrade-unique protein" provided, for me, some of the most interesting facts concerning tardigrades I have found by far. This article talks about the relationship of unique tardigrades with radiotolerance of human cells.

The article begins by discussing a few of the unique properties tardigrades posses. One of the main abilities of this species is being able to survive under extreme temperatures as low as -273 °C and as high as 100 °C. when in a dehydrated state. To test this tolerance factor, Hashimoto, T, et al. (2016) analysed two types of this species in a dehydrated state (Ramazzottius varieornatus and Hypsibius dujardini). During their comparison, they discovered that R. varieornatus expressed the most prevalent genes for tolerance under the extreme temperatures. They found that 138 out of the 234 putative HGT (tolerance genes) underwent transcription, making it the appropriate type of tardigrade to test (Hashimoto, 2016). 

To further understand these tolerances, their studies progressed to focus on DNA associated proteins within R. varieornatus. To test this, these scientists took the nuclear chromatin and combined that with GFP. This allowed them to isolate the tolerance protein which is called Damage suppressor or Dsup. They discovered that the Dsup protein co-localizes with nuclear DNA in HEK 293T cells (human cells). Taking this isolated protein, they then compared the effects of damaged nuclear DNA.

To observe this they took both the Dsup with the HEK 293T cells and put them in different cultures such as under X-rays and in hydrogen peroxide. When under X-ray radiation, they found that the damaged DNA was suppressed by 16%. In the hydrogen peroxide medium, they found a 40% reduction of fragmented DNA when compared to a control. These incredible results offered a conclusion that these co-isolated proteins have an exceptional radiotolerance in human cells. 

I found this article incredible insightful and unique because of how this could impact our tolerance to all the radiation found in our day to day lives. There is a widely accepted social belief that radioactivity derives in a variety of mediums with the potential to damage human DNA. Likewise, their are implications for this tolerance in tardigrades to help with this damage.  I am excited to know that this tolerance could be expressed in human genes and could potentially treat patients with radiation damage. I truly hope this tolerance can be used to impact society by contributing to modern medicines in the near future.

-Brandon D. Ostler

References
Hashimoto, T., et al. (2016). Extremotolerant tardigrade genome and improved radiotolerance of human cultured cells by tardigrade-unique protein. Nature Communications, 7 (12808), Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12808

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Kill The Pain But Not The Patient

               Opioid’s are a serious problem that according to Edward Bilsky, an opioid pharmacologist and provost at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, can potentially be eliminated. Opioid addiction is a problem that needs to be faced as soon as possible. Utah has many different ads that are sure to be seen driving on the freeway, but we are not the only state that has an issue. Many people have died and many more will continue to die “In 2015, 2 million Americans suffered from prescription opioid addiction, and more than 33,000 died of an opioid overdose” (pg. 44) There is a solution to the problem at hand.               In Jonathon Keats’ article, building a better Painkiller, Christopher Stein stumbled upon something that would change the way that opioids are researched. He noticed that among rats an inflamed leg would be numb to the effects of touch, but anot...
22 comments
Read more

Cell phones and Cancer?

Some recent studies are calling us to be more cautious about our cell phone usage. There have been some studies on lab rats over the last two years that have started linking cell phone usage to higher cancer rates. Basically what the experiment was, Scientists exposed a bunch of lab rats to about the same amount of RF radiation (Radio Frequency, the kind of radiation cell phones use to communicate with cell towers) cell phones and wireless routers and basically all of our modern internet devices, expose us to. Long story short the Rats had a noticeably higher rate of schwannomas, and cancer in glial cells than regular non-exposed rats.  There were some other really cool findings from the study too. For example only Male lab rats contracted Schwannomas (cancer of Schwann cells in nerve tissue) and only female lab rats were found to have glioma. (cancer in glial cells, cells that help brain cells) They also found higher levels of other types of cancer such as skin cancer, prostat...
11 comments
Read more

Sharks Cause Alzheimer's

                The article that I read and researched was about a study preformed on shark fins and shark meat. This study focuses on an effect that shark meat and fins have on humans that consume it. Scientists from the University of Miami found high concentrations of toxins linked to neurodegenerative diseases in the fins and muscles of 10 species of sharks (Biology News 2016). The scientist took samples from shark tissues in these 10 species from both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. After performing test on these samples they reported results of high concentration of “mercury and β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA). Recent studies have linked BMAA to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. While both mercury and BMAA by themselves pose a health risk, together they may also have synergistic toxic impacts.” (Biology News 2016).      ...
13 comments
Read more