A group of researchers examined the brain of octopuses, and it was found that their intelligence can be connected to their RNA. After examining the mRNA in 18 tissues, including parts of the brain, it was found that octopus’ mRNA does not have unusual features, like the scientists expected, except for having unusually long tails. The tail of mRNA helps in exporting the mRNA from the nucleus to the cytoplasm, a longer tail could give extra control to the mRNA. MicroRNA are molecules that can mark mRNA for disposal or prevent the message from being translated. It was found that octopuses have 164 miRNA genes, similar to chicken. It is very uncommon for an invertebrate to have this many miRNA. It was observed that 34/43 of the miRNA families in octopuses were concentrated in neural tissue, leading to the conclusion that this miRNA has a big effect on the intelligence of the species. Because of the miRNA similarity to vertebrate species, which also have complex brains, it can be inferred that miRNAs are linked to the evolution of complex animal brains.
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