A Very Mammoth Project

If movies like Jurassic Park have taught us anything, it’s that it is not a good idea to bring extinct animals back to life. However, an article was written about a project called “Woolly Mammoth Revival” led by Harvard geneticist George Church didn’t seem to get the hint. Research on de-extinction, the science of bringing extinct animals back to life, has been progressing significantly in recent years and the woolly mammoth may be the next animal to be brought back to life from extinction. Church’s work so far only focuses on single cells, but the team has been carefully placing mammoth genes into these cells belonging to their closest living relative, the Asian elephant. This will create a sort of hybrid animal that will be comprised mostly of Asian elephant DNA incorporated with mammoth DNA to give it the characteristics of a mammoth.

The rest of the article has a lot more information, more than most people will care to read, but over-all, while I do not agree with reviving the woolly mammoth, I do fully support the processes associated with this project because of the benefits these genetic techniques will have towards living endangered species. Using gene manipulation and “test tube” embryos, science has made great strides in conserving endangered species and further enhancement of such techniques will prove invaluable to these animals’ genetic diversity.

Possible Re-write of the Elephant Family Tree

For many years, scientists thought they had the elephant family tree mapped out. However, a recent discovery of an ancient elephant fossil forces scientists to rethink the family tree.

What we know now is that there are three species of modern elephants:
1. The Asian Elephant (Alphas maximus)
2. The African Elephant- forest dwellers (Loxodonta cyclotis)
3. The African Elephant- Savannah (Loxodonta africana)

Straight Tusked Elephant (Paleoxodon antiquus)

We also know that scientists believed the ancient predecessor, the Straight Tusked elephant (Paleoxodon antiquus) was the closest relative to the Asian elephant. But new research shows that the predecessor is actually more closely related to the African forest elephants. Even more new research of the mammoth genome reveals that mammoths and elephant species were known to interbreed in the past. This means the elephant family tree will need to be minimally altered.

What we know about the Straight Tusked elephant:
The Straight tusked elephant lived in European forests until 100,000 years ago.
Straight tusked elephants and mammoth species have interbred.
Straight tusked elephants have interbred with Asian elephants.
Straight tusked elephants represent the oldest whole genomes from a warm environment.


The greatest fascination about the elephant genome is that the Straight tusked elephant genome wasn't just sequenced, it was sequenced in such high quality, that each letter was sequenced on average
15 times, leaving many scientists in complete awe.

For more about the interbreeding of the mammoth and elephant: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/scientists-successfully-insert-woolly-mammoth-dna-elephant-genome/

 

Dumbo May Hold The Key To Treating Cancer Better In Humans

Elephants are known for their majestic size and resilience, but also for their long lives. In fact, elephants live longer than any other land mammal, except for man, only beating them by less than a decade. However, elephants have 100 times more cells than humans do. This provides ample opportunity for cancer-causing mutations to occur. However, only 5% of elephants die of cancer, whereas up to 25% of humans do. This lead to the hypothesis that elephants’ bodies must have evolved a way to suppress cancer. 

Scientists analyzed the DNA of both African and Asian elephants and discovered that both species had 20 copies of P53 gene, which is known to have tumor-suppressing qualities. In comparison, humans only have one copy of the P53 gene. Moreover, the genes of elephants’ smaller ancestors showed only a few copies of the P53 gene. This implies that as elephants evolved, their genetic code developed more copies of the P53 gene. However, although this is an interesting discovery, it does not answer all of scientists’ questions about the P53 gene.

 I think that it is awesome that medical scientists may find cancer-fighting tactics from other members of the animal kingdom! Since it seems that the high amount of P53 gene in elephants is coordinated with their large size, it makes me wonder if this relationship of having natural cancer-fighting abilities transfers over to the genomes of other large mammals, such as whales. If that is the case, then those animals should be looked at too, since they may have their own ways of combatting cancer that could be useful in humans.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2456041

http://www.popsci.com/this-gene-prevents-elephants-from-getting-cancer

This Gene Might Be Why Elephants Don't Get Cancer

Scientists at the University of Utah are looking closer at elephants, trying to understand why these massive animals do not suffer from cancer nearly as much as humans do.  Humans have 37 trillion cells in their body, and a 11-25% death from cancer rate, whereas elephants have over a quadrillion cells in their bodies and a death from cancer rate of about 5%.  Considering elephants have over 100 times as many cells as humans, theoretically, elephants should be getting cancer much more frequently.  

These scientists believe the elephants ability to avoid cancer has something to do with the P53 gene.  Humans have a single P53 gene, and it is known to suppress tumors and coordinate cell death.  The gene is evident in many species, such as elephants.  Whereas humans have one P53 gene, elephants have at least twenty copies of the P53 gene.  The current hypothesis about why the P53 gene helps elephants stay cancer free comes from an experiment that involved exposing human and elephant blood to radiation.  More elephant cells died than human cells when exposed, so the scientists believe the increased number of P53 genes are telling the cells to die rather than live with the radiation.

This new development could make a huge difference in cancer research.  The P53 gene was already known to be a tumor suppressant, but if it could be confirmed that an increased number of this gene, lowers the risk of cancer, maybe more research could be done to find a strategy of treating cancer in humans.

Original Article

For more information on the P53 gene, click here.

Woolly Mammoths: a Step Closer to Jurassic-Park-Like Recreation

A recent posting from the popular science website IFLScience  entitled  "Scientists Successfully Insert Woolly Mammoth DNA into Elephant Genome" has allowed for Jurassic Park dreams to come to life. Recently, a team of Harvard geneticists lead by George Church have been able to successfully implant Woolly Mammoths genes into the elephant genome. Woolly Mammoths, one of the more well-known extinct species, appeared around 2 million years ago and went extinct around 4,000 years ago after the last surviving population died out on an Island in the Arctic Ocean about 6,000 years after the majority of their species. Because Woolly Mammoths lived primarily in tundra landscapes, many of their carcasses have been discovered in excellent condition due to the protection the permafrost offered them from decomposition. While their bodies remained fairly intact, their DNA was not as lasting. DNA degrades over time, icy preservation or not, thus leading to mere shards of the Mammoth genome being discovered with the carcasses. While this seems like a discouraging issue, Church’s team as well as others, have been looking to merge some of the fragmented bits of genetic material found with the genome of the Woolly Mammoths most closely related living species, the Asian elephant. Using relatively new techniques to carefully cut at the elephant genome, Church’s team was able to successfully insert 14 Woolly Mammoth genes into the DNA of living elephant cells, focusing on genes associated with surviving in frigid landscapes. The Mammoth DNA shreds were extracted from some of latest surviving Woolly Mammoths, those that had survived past most of their species on Wrangle Island in the Arctic Ocean. The elephant cells with inserted Mammoth DNA have been successfully functioning, Church reported to the Sunday Times . While this experiment is certainly revolutionary, Church and his team have yet to publish their work in any science journal because, as Church says, “there is more work to do”. As in the case of Jurassic Park, this work brings up the ethics behind recreating an extinct species. While Church believes the reintroduction of Woolly Mammoths may help the declining Siberian permafrost , there is also debate against recreating this ancient species and the ethics of “playing God” (the irony of Church’s last name really adds to this argument, in my opinion).

Why Some Animals Live Longer than Others

Scientists from the University of Liverpool recently published an article in Science Daily that discussed a newly discovered a method to detect the proteins associated with longevity. The scientists further looked in to the genome of 30 mammalian species to look for specific proteins that code for longevity. They found a certain protein responsible for repairing damaged DNA. When they took a closer look at the protein they found it evolves and mutates in a non-random way, in animals species that live longer.The scientists concluded that certain proteins are selected by evolution to change in longer living mammals, such as humans and elephants.