Death is a universal fact of life, Elon Musk says so too. Accept it, it applies to everyone. Except for a jellyfish, of course: as a new study explains, the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii it is the only species that can literally rejuvenate itself repeatedly after sexual reproduction, becoming “biologically immortal.”
Its DNA may contain the secret of eternal life.
How does the T. Dohrnii jellyfish cheat death?
È an incredible biological feat. Each member of the species is an identical clone and begins life as a polyp that becomes a mature organism called a jellyfish. If a jellyfish gets injured, gets sick, or ages, it turns back into a polyp and starts the whole process again, churning out more clones. Scientists call this “life cycle reversal.” It's as if an old person turns back into a fetus, or as if a chicken turns back into an egg.
In a study published Monday in the journal PNAS by researchers ofUniversity of Oviedo in Spain (I link it here), the authors describe how they compared the DNA of T. dohrnii with another closely related, but not immortal, species of jellyfish. The purpose? Understanding what makes this particular jellyfish special.
And what did they find?
As it turns out, there are several differences that contribute to the jellyfish's biological immortality. Changes, we read in the study, which “suggest that T. dohrnii it may have more efficient replication mechanisms and repair systems than other species ”.
The immortal jellyfish has, among other peculiarities, multiple copies of the genes that govern DNA repair and those that govern telomerase. This produces greater cellular plasticity.
Maybe these results will not allow tomorrow (nor the day after tomorrow, perhaps never) human beings to become "biologically immortal" like T. dohrnii, but it's an incredible leap forward in our understanding of aging and how someone copes with it.
Up to defeat him.
