Staff writers
Tiny, tubby and seemingly indestructible tardigrades might become a little less mysterious to science today, after Japanese researchers successfully developed what they hope is a technique that will allow them to be used in labs for tests – like fruit flies.
Tardigrades are famous for their apparent ability to survive extremes, including loss of water; and even survival on the surface of spaceships in the chilling vacuum of space. They are a consistent source of speculation – how do the extremophiles do it?
Studying these aquatic invertebrates’ individual, protein-producing gene sequences is likely to reveal the key. For instance, a ‘gel’ protein is suspected to help tardigrades survive extensive periods of dehydration.
Using a type of CRISPR gene editing, University of Tokyo researchers have demonstrated the ability to ‘knock out’ or ‘knock in’ specific genes.
DIPA-CRISPR works like a knife to cut and modify gene sequences, which enables modifications to be passed to offspring. It’s hoped the successful implementation of the technique will allow a fleet of ‘modded’ tardigrades to be studied in lab settings, as is the case for lab-specific fruit flies sometimes used for scientific study.
“To understand tardigrades’ superpowers, we first need to understand the way their genes function,” says Takekazu Kunieda, a biological scientist specialising in tardigrade research at Tokyo.
“My team and I have developed a method to edit genes – adding, removing or overwriting them – like you would do on computer data, in a very tolerant species of tardigrade: Ramazzottius varieornatus. This can now allow researchers to study tardigrade genetic traits as they might more established lab-based animals, such as fruit flies or nematodes.”
Having demonstrated the ability to pass gene modifications across generations, the next step is to start the process of modifying specific genes to try and ascertain their function or, more simply, how they provide the tardigrade their ‘powers’.
With the ‘gel’ protein as a target, the Tokyo research team see potential in for such proteins to help in human applications, like preserving organs.
“CRISPR can be an incredible tool for understanding life and aiding in useful applications that can positively impact the world,” says Kunieda.
“Tardigrades not only offer us a glimpse at what medical advances might be possible, but their range of remarkable traits means they had an incredible evolutionary story, one we hope to tell as we compare their genomes to closely related creatures using our new DIPA-CRIPSR-based technique.”
The research was published in the journal PLoS Genetics.