this Turritopsis dohrnii It is only a few millimeters in size and is one of the few known animals that can rewind time and regenerate itself. That’s why these tiny creatures living in parts of the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of ​​Japan are known as immortal jellyfish. Now, the University of Oviedo has managed to decipher in their genomes how they can extend their lives to the point of avoiding death.

Lifecycle. We are born, we grow, we multiply and we die, right? These are essentially the basic stages of the life cycle of living things. These are essentially T. dohrnii He learned to ‘hack’. This jellyfish has the ability to be born, grow, reproduce and decline; regrow, reproduce and shrink; and so on until a predator or disease kills him.

well, T. dohrnii can turn the life cycle into an earlier asexual stage called a polyp. This makes this jellyfish a really interesting field of study. Not because we can use what we learned from him on ourselves, but because his study could open us up to solutions we could not even imagine. Researchers at the University of Oviedo know this, and so they set out to sequence the genome.

The key is in the genome. In recent years, available bioinformatics tools have revolutionized comparative genomics. Thanks to this revolution, Asturian scientists were able to identify amplified genes (or characteristic variants) that allowed the immortal jellyfish to reverse traditional ontogenetic development.

Most are genes associated with “DNA replication and repair, telomere maintenance, stem cell population regeneration, intercellular communication, and reduction of the oxidative cellular environment.” In other words, they only serve to confirm what we already know in the first place: that all these processes are clearly associated with “longevity and healthy aging.”

University of Oviedo

Clock does not mark hours. Most interesting, however, is a comprehensive study of changes in gene expression during the rejuvenation process. In this way, the researchers discovered that gene silencing signals mediated by the so-called “Polycomb” pathway and increased expression of genes related to the cell pluripotency pathway.

In other words, pathways have been found that allow specialized cells to differentiate, “go back” and develop into any cell type. The discovery is great because it makes clear that these two biochemical pathways are essential in the cyclical rejuvenation of jellyfish. It is an important step in our understanding of these extremely rare processes.

Still far from immortal. However, as researcher Maria Pascual-Torner puts it, instead of having a single key to rejuvenation and immortality, “it makes clear that the various mechanisms found in our study as a whole will act synergistically, thereby managing the process to ensure immortal jellyfish.” rejuvenation success.” In other words, we cannot use an isolated mechanism, there is much to explore.

Image | SYNCHRONICITY