The Simplest Animal with Accelerated DNA Repair in The Presence of Ionizing Radiation

    Cancer affects millions of people across the world and available treatments can only do so much to mediate symptoms and stall its progression. However, there is a multicellular organism that has shown to successfully maneuver cell damage and there is no recorded observation of these simple animals overly affected by cancer due to their reparative mechanisms. The Trichoplax adhaerens reproduces asexually, which may have you think its species would be more susceptible to cancer than humans yet that has not been the case. In this study, the expression of reparative genes and those that incite apoptosis have shown to increase with exposure to radiation. Although exposure has caused morphological change in the organism, it is able to extrude these mutations from its body. 

    The transcriptome analysis compared gene expression at difference rates of radiation exposure. Among the genes analyzed were those that share functional characteristics to human genes, which act as tumor suppressors and function in DNA repair. Some ortholog genes are not well known in humans, yet the study suggests that one in particular, EMC2, functions in response to cell damage. The study states that, "The function of EMC2 is not well known in humans, but our results suggest that at least one of its functions may be X-ray damage response." Studying T. adhaerens' resistance could aid in identifying genes that act in DNA repair and apoptosis in humans given the orthologous genes present. How cancer treatments are conducted could improve and/or could be supplemented by further analysis of T. adhaerens.

Bones Show Dolly's Arthritis Was Normal For a Sheep Her Age

It was reported that Dolly the Sheep suffered from severe arthritis in her knees. New x-ray evidence shows that cloning was unlikely the reason for this arthritis. Other cloned sheep along with Dolly's naturally conceived daughter, Bonnie, were also x-rayed. Results revealed that Dolly had the joints of any normal sheep her age, cloned or not. Dolly had arthritis in her hips, knees, and elbows, which is common in sheep. Dolly, Bonnie, and two other cloned sheep, Megan and Morag, had their bones examined. After examination, it is suggested that Megan and Bonnie, who were older than Dolly at their time of death, had more damaged bones whereas Morag who was younger at death had less bone damage. Overall, Dolly's arthritis levels were equal to those of any normal sheep at her age, suggesting that cloning wasn't to blame. It is thought that her "creaky" joints are a result from giving birth to six lambs.

It is interesting to learn more about Dolly considering every biology student has heard about this famous sheep. I did not know the details of her health such as the arthritis but it is good to know that there is evidence supporting the cloning did not affect that aspect of her health and that it was just due to pregnancy which is common for sheep after giving birth. 

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