Bugs That Come Back To Life After Drying Up
The larva of the sleeping chironomid, Polypedilum vanderplanki—a mosquito-like insect that inhabits semi-arid areas of Africa—is well known for being able to come back to life after being nearly completely desiccated, losing up to 97 percent of its body’s water content. However, the genetic mechanisms the insects use to achieve this feat, and, especially is the identity of the master gene that induces desiccation tolerance have remained largely elusive.
Chironomus plumosus similar to polypedilum vanderplanki
Credit: ©entomart / Wikimedia Commons
To perform the research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers compared data on RNA expression in the sleeping chironomid with a closely related species, Polypedilum nubifer, which is not capable of surviving desiccation. They found that in the sleeping chironomid, hundreds of genes, including genes known to be involved in forming a “molecular shield” against damage due to dehydration, were already expressed during the early stages of desiccation.
Chironomid larva,about 1 cm long, the head is right: The magnified tail details are from other images of the same animal.
Credit: teffen Dietzel, Dietzel65 / Wikimedia Commons
To shed further light on the role of trehalose, they treated a cultured cell line from the sleeping chironomid with the sugar, and found that many of the genes activated by desiccation were also activated, and further, that the trehalose treatment led to the activation of the HSF gene. This effect of trehalose was prevented by knocking down the HSF gene, showing the HSF was clearly involved in the response.
According to Oleg Gusev, who led the group, “The discovery that heat shock factor is an important regulator of gene expression in response to desiccation was very interesting for us. It seems that these extremophilic insects in the process of evolution have coopted a very conservative transcription factor and its action for their own needs to survive without water by evolving a special gene structure and “adjusting” their genome sequence for these “needs”.
Looking to the future, he continues, “One potential application of this finding will be in preserving cells outside the body in a dry state, if we can active the HSF gene. We now have a good understanding of how it works in this insect, so we will want to investigate if this is true for other organisms as well.”
Contacts and sources:
Oleg Gusev
RIKEN-KFU Translational Genomics Unit
RIKEN Innovation Center
Jens Wilkinson
RIKEN
Source: http://www.ineffableisland.com/2018/03/bugs-that-come-back-to-life-after.html
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