Anne Brunet’s graduate student suggested she use turquoise
killifish and that is how it all started. They found out that the fish loses
muscle mass while aging, stop producing eggs, have a weaken immune system and
even have memory problems. They did an entire genome sequence and located the
genes that are known for aging processes. They used a technique called Crispr,
which could replace DNA with a different one. With that technique they altered
the gene TERT that protects telomeres. They think that as telomeres get shorter
the aging processes increases and had a link to aging. After the TERT
alteration they makes became infertile and females less eggs, atrophied, and
had less blood cells, but never died any sooner than their expected life span. They
plan on continuing the research in order to find out potential anti-aging
treatments for the fish and then hopefully be able to convert it for humans.
This is not normally an article I would attract to, but I
was surprisingly very interesting in this topic. If they could find a treatment
to increase life span it can be very beneficial for the whole human race.
Although they are not there yet, if they keep working, it has a lot of
potential. Another thing that I like about the article was that it mentioned
that the graduate student was the one to mention the turquoise killifish,
although they did say their name, just the recognition that they had suggested it
was nice. The world is very into living longer and looking younger, so this
could potentially be the answer to that, but we will have to wait and see.
This is great research! As a marine biology major I love fish. However I did not know that this certain killifish had such a short live span! I also found it interesting that they exhibit similar signs of aging as humans do, even though they are not mammals.
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