OVIEDO, August 30 (Benin News) –
A team of researchers from the University of Oviedo has deciphered the genome of the immortal jellyfish (“Turritopsis dohrnii”), and has defined several genomic keys that contribute to extending its longevity to the point of preventing its death.
The study, led by Carlos López-Otín, was published Monday in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The tiny jellyfish studied, only a few millimeters long, has the ability to reverse the direction of its life cycle to return to an earlier asexual stage called a polyp.
The vast majority of living beings, after the stage of reproduction, follow a characteristic process of cellular and tissue aging that ends in the death of the organism. T. dohrnii, however, has the ability to choose another path: reverse its life cycle and rejuvenate.
Sequencing the genome of ‘Turritopsis dohrnii’, as well as that of its mortal sister ‘Turritopsis rubra’, and the use of bioinformatics and comparative genomics tools have enabled researchers to identify amplified or differentially varying genes, characteristics of the immortal jellyfish.
These genes are associated with DNA replication and repair, maintenance of telomeres, renewal of stem cell populations, intercellular communication, and reduction of the oxidative cellular environment.
All of these affect processes that, in humans, have been linked to longevity and healthy aging. In addition, the exhaustive study of changes in gene expression during the rejuvenation process in this immortal jellyfish led to the discovery of gene silencing signals mediated by the so-called “Polycomb” pathway and the expression increased number of genes linked to the cellular pluripotency pathway.
These two processes are necessary for the specialized cells to dedifferentiate and can become any type of cell, thus forming the new organism. These results suggest that these two biochemical pathways are key mediators of cyclic rejuvenation in this jellyfish.
In this sense, Maria Pascual-Torner, postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo and first author of the article with Dido Carrero, points out that “rather than having a single key for the rejuvenation and immortality, the various mechanisms discovered in our work would act in synergy as a whole, thus orchestrating the process to ensure the successful rejuvenation of the immortal jellyfish”.
Finally, Carlos López-Otín, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the Asturian University, points out that “this work does not seek to find strategies to achieve the dreams of human immortality that some announce, but to understand the keys and the limits of the fascinating cellular plasticity which allows certain organisms to be able to travel in time”.
“With this knowledge, we hope to find better answers to the many age-related diseases that plague us today,” adds the researcher.
This study, funded by the European Union (through an AGE Advanced Grant) and the Ministry of Science and Innovation, also involved Dido Carrero, José G. Pérez-Silva, Diana Álvarez-Puente, David Roiz-Valle, Gabriel Bretones, David Rodríguez, Daniel Maeso, Elena Mateo-González, Yaiza Español, Guillermo Mariño, José Luís Acuña and Víctor Quesada, from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Instituto Universitario de Oncología del Principado of Asturias (IUOPA), the Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria del Principado de Asturias (ISPA) and the Observatorio Marino de Asturias (OMA).