More than 35 years after the nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine -the largest catastrophe of this type in history- it is possible to find in the surroundings of the closed power plant and in abandoned buildings a significant amount of dogs roaming the place. These animals caught the attention of scientists, who began to analyze them in the hope that they would teach Humans how you can live in hostile and degraded environments.
In one of these studies, the results of which came to light last Friday, scientists performed a series of genetic analyzes on about 302 dogs who roam the so-called “exclusion zone” of Chernobyl. The scientists discovered, firstthat these animals, which were subjected to different levels of radiation exposure, are genetically different to the rest of the dogs from other parts of the world.
This is the first in a long series of genetic studies on these animals that was published in Magazine Science Advances. “We have had this opportunity to lay the foundations to answer a crucial question: ‘What do you do to survive in a hostile environment like this for 15 generations?’” he said, to the AP agency, the geneticist Elaine Ostranderfrom the National Institute for Human Genome Research, one of the authors of the study.
Tim Mousseauanother author of the study, professor of Biological Sciences at the University of South Carolinasaid dogs “provide an incredible tool for looking at the impacts of this kind of environment” on mammals in general.
He April 26, 1986an explosion and subsequent fire in the Reactor Number 4 of the plant in the Chernobyl district, 16 kilometers from the city of Pripyat, northern Ukraine -at that time, part of the Soviet Union- caused the release of radioactive dust into the environment. This contamination lasted for days, spreading the radioactive material for many kilometers around the incident site. The exclusion zone reached a radius of 1600 square kilometers from the plant.
After the explosion, some thirty workers. But over the years it is estimated that mortality from radioactive poisoning could -and may- have reached thousands of victims.
The researchers believe that dogs analyzed in these studies are the descendants of those that were abandoned by their owners when they evacuated the area after the catastrophe. Indeed, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, under the command of the Kremlin, had ordered that all pets be euthanized. But several animals managed to avoid this appointment with death.
However, after the brutal nuclear disaster, the dogs seem to have managed quite well. Currently, according to a census by the Investigation of Chernobyl dogs that reproduces the Spanish newspaper El País, there are more than 800 wild dogs in the area. “Anything we can learn about how do dogs survive in that environment will be of direct relevance to humans in Chernobyl and other radioactive environments,” Mousseau assured the aforementioned outlet.
This scientist has been working in the disaster area since the late 1990s. In 2017 he began taking blood samples from these dogs. Some of them live inside the plant, surrounded by an apocalyptic industrial environment. Others are at a distance of between 15 and 45 kilometers from the epicenter of the catastrophe.
The amazing thing was that the ADN of these animals allows to easily differentiate the dogs that are in the areas of high, low and medium radiation. “It was a big milestone for us,” he said. Ostrenderwhich added another striking fact: “The amazing thing is that we can identify about 15 different families of these animals.”
From this first analysis, the researchers can dedicate themselves to looking for the type of alterations that the dog DNA. “We can compare them and say: let’s see the differences, what changed, what mutated, what evolved, what helps you, what hurts you at the DNA level,” Ostrander told AP. To do this, scientists will have to differentiate inconsequential changes in the genome from useful changes.
According to the researchers, the findings of these studies could have many applications. In particular, because it would provide clues about how humans and other mammals can currently and in the future live in regions under “continuous environmental attack”as in the high-radiation environment of space.
The continuation of the investigations will require the scientists to spend more time with the dogs at the site, about 100 kilometers from kyiv, Ukrainian capital. Despite the fact that the country is at war against the invaders of Russia, Mousseau He stated that he and his colleagues were at the site in October and saw no warlike action.
The scientist also ventured to talk about the tender part of the research, noting that many members of his team made friends with the dogs. Even one of them was baptized Prancerwhich in Spanish means ‘jumping’by the way she jumps around the investigators whenever they get close to her.
“Although they are free, they still enjoy interacting with humans. Especially when food appears,” said the American scientist.
With information from AP agency
THE NATION