The water bear, also known as a tardigrade, is a microscopic creature that has the ability to survive boiling water, alcohol, some of the lowest temperatures known to man, and radiation levels that would kill any human. So, what makes this water bear so resilient, and how we can from this creature?
This is something that scientists have trying to get to the bottom of for a very long time. What they’ve always suspected is that the water bear mobilizes a sugar called trehalose in order to reinforce its body and keep from being destroyed. However, they’ve now discovered something else. Researchers claim they’ve discovered an exclusively tardigradean protein that the creature creates and forms it into a glass bead. When it’s in this state, the water bear can survive almost anything – something which us humans could certainly benefit from.
However, there’s one small problem with the trehalose theory. While various other organisms such as nematode worms and brine shrimp use this protein to survive, researchers found that not all species of the water bear produced this sugar during stressful times. Where some other organisms were producing the equivalent trehalose to make up as much as 20 percent of their body weight, the water bear managed just 2 percent.
But, this wasn’t enough to deter the researchers, and they continued to analyze the creature. When they took a closer look at the creature’s genes, they found that there was an abundance of genes that encode intrinsically disordered proteins. Biologist and co-author of the study, Thomas C. Boothby of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explained, “One of the things we’re really interested in is figuring out how exactly this tardigrade intrinsically disordered proteins are working. It’s a really interesting question about how a protein without a defined three-dimensional structure can carry out its functions in a cell.”
Boothby also explained how the team managed to pinpoint the genes responsible for the creation of the water bear’s life-saving proteins. “We went on to show that if you reduce expression of these genes in tarigrades, they can no longer survive desiccation very well.” He also said, “If you take those genes and put them into organisms like bacteria and yeast, which normally do not have these proteins, they actually become more desiccation-tolerant.”
This discovery is great news for the water bear and humanity in general. Boothby explains, “One potential application would be to use these tardigrade proteins to stabilize vaccines or pharmaceuticals in a dry state that you can keep at room temperature and not have to worry about refrigeration during transportation and storage.”
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