An international collaborative research group led by Assistant Professor Takahiro Yamada and Associate Professor Kei Funahashi of the Department of Bioinformatics, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University presented new findings on the drought resistance and rehydration recovery mechanism of Pv11 cells.
The larvae of Polypedilum vanderplanki, an insect native to Africa, are resistant to drought, and even after complete desiccation, they enter a non-metabolic state to avoid death, and when given water, they return to their original life cycle. Is possible.The Pv11 cells established as cultured cells derived from this sleeping chironomid embryo can be dried and stored at room temperature while maintaining their proliferative capacity by high-concentration trehalose treatment.
This time, the group focused on the mysterious phenomenon of Pv11 cells, which do not die when dried and resume cell division when given water, and estimated genes that could contribute to this mechanism.As a result, it was found that the gene expression pattern of Pv11 cells was different at each stage of trehalose treatment, desiccation, and rehydration.For example, it was suggested that during trehalose treatment and drying, genes that remove substances that are harmful to living organisms are highly expressed, and during drying, the expression of genes involved in protein translation is suppressed, resulting in energy savings.It was also revealed that during rehydration, genes that repair serious DNA damage are highly expressed.
By introducing the gene clarified from this result into another cell, it is expected that the possibility of producing cells that do not die even when dried will increase, leading to the development of new biological material / cell preservation technology.
Paper information:[Scientific Reports] Transcriptome analysis of the anhydrobiotic cell line Pv11 infers the mechanism of desiccation tolerance and recovery
