These natural changes are what we call aging. 2008; Galliot and Chera 2010) and Podocoryna carnea (Schmid et al. However, their ability to switch back and forth between life stages in response to stress means that, in theory, they could live forever. Thus, although I-cell proliferation occurs during the reversal, it does not seem to play a crucial role in the morph rejuvenation from medusae to polyp as portions of the medusae that contain no I-cells are still able to fully revert to the polyp stage (Piraino et al. ANNEX Augmentation was performed after merging the InterPro annotations, and 1st level annotations were manually removed as recommend by B2G (Conesa and Gtz 2008). Eventually, depending on the jellyfish species, one of these polyps will form an outgrowth called a bud, or it may produce separate segments stacked on top of one another, that can then break away from the rest of the colony. The protocol was carried out with the following minor modifications recommended by the manufacturer: 1) Pre-rinsing and removing RNAlater from tissue using the T&C Buffer provided by the Epicentre kit; 2) 1/5th of reagent amounts were utilized due to the small amounts of tissue; 3) Increase the number of ethanol washes to additionally purify RNA. Then Sommer forgot about them. Phys.org is a part of Science X network. Puzzled by this, Sommer and Bavestrello continued their observations. Share Share on Pinterest Share on Facebook Share on Twitter There were 9,003 transcripts that were not found in the Cyst stage. Bulletin of the Biogeographical Society of Japan 64, 9799 (2009). 2012; Brekhman et al. In addition, the GO categories related to transposition (reference to GO:0032196, GO:0032197) were over-expressed in the Cyst vs. Polyp and Cyst vs. Polyp+Medusa analyses (Table 4). Maria Pia Miglietta, associate professor in marine biology, has been researching the unique properties of Turritopsisdohrnii, often referred to as T. dohrnii, a jellyfish species found around the world, especially off the coastline of her native Italy. Z., Weis V. M., and Meyer E., 2015. Turritopsis dohrnii, the so-called "immortal jellyfish," can hit the reset button and revert to an earlier developmental stage if it is injured or otherwise threatened. The hydranths branch off at an acute angle from the hydrocaulus (stem), and then curve away. The annotation pipeline from Blast2GO (Conesa et al. Unable to load your collection due to an error, Unable to load your delegates due to an error, Venn diagram of the Blastx annotations from the Polyp, Medusa and Cyst stage. Once most jellyfish reach this adult "medusa" stage, they can also start reproducing sexually by releasing sperm and eggs into the water. Polyps and medusae differ in anatomy and in cell types. This ability to go from medusa to polyp means an individual can live a very long life! Every cell contains all the information necessary to build a new whole organism, but only part of this information is actually used once a cell becomes differentiated. Their claim to immortality? The medusae of the species we believed we had are not released with mature gonads. AccessScience. On the perils of working on nonmodel organisms. 2017) and it is closely associated to the Wnt-signaling cascade in cell fate determination and development (Collu et al. 2016), where H. vulgaris and N. vectensis ranked 1st and 2nd among top hit species, and accounted for 38% of all top-hits. Two different alignment software based on different algorithms (TopHat v2.1 and CLC Genomic Workbench v8 read mapper tool) were utilized for the assessment. The supplementary additional files contain the following: A) NanoDrop and Bioanalyzer results to assess quality; B) Number of raw, trimmed and normalized reads for each stage; C) Cyst RNA-seq alignment to evaluate triplicate datasets; D) Read mapping evaluation of each transcriptome; E) KEGG enzyme mapping; F) De novo assembly statistics, gene content completeness, and functional annotation comparison among cnidarian transcriptomes; G) BLASTx top hit species distribution; H) Summary of Blast2GO transcriptome annotation; I) Names of transcripts from BLASTx annotation and corresponding stages they were identified in; J) Cyst vs. Polyp GO comparative analysis; K) Cyst vs. Medusa GO comparative analysis; L) Cyst vs. Polyp+Medusa GO comparative analysis; M) Top 10 over-expressed biological processes categories in the Cyst as compared to the Polyp and Medusa; N) Annotation profiling of the life cycle stages; O) Ranking of top 100 GO terms based on direct GO count for the Cyst, Polyp and Medusa; P) Reciprocal tBLASTx search of telomerase related mRNA transcripts; Q) Top 10 under-expressed biological processes categories in the Cyst as compared to the Polyp; R) GO categories associated with cellular communication and signaling, cell differentiation and specialization, and development that were under-expressed in the Cyst in comparison to the Polyp and the Medusa. One 2018 study also found metformin can reduce aerobic capacity and quash the benefits of excercise something we know to help fight the effects of old age. Evolution and development of scyphozoan jellyfish. Lisenkova AA, Grigorenko AP, Tyazhelova TV, Andreeva TV, Gusev FE, Manakhov AD, Goltsov AY, Piraino S, Miglietta MP, Rogaev EI. Science Spain Scientists unlock secrets of 'immortal jellyfish' Louisa Wright with Reuters 08/31/2022 This jellyfish can repeatedly reverse its age. at many locations in the Atlantic and Pacific in 2002-2009. When the two types of tissue were excised and isolated, the manubrium (containing I-cells) was not able to transform into perisarc-secreting tissue, the chitinous exterior that protects the soft tissue in the cyst and polyp stage, but absent in the medusa (Piraino et al. 2018; Moura et al. Bioinformatics 20: 578580. The site is secure. Blast2GO: a universal tool for annotation, visualization and analysis in functional genomics research. Again, the planulas settle and produce new polyp colonies and, meanwhile, the medusae die. Her work is supported with a $294,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. 2006). Hydrozoan insights in animal development and evolution. official website and that any information you provide is encrypted Myxozoans: ancient metazoan parasites find a home in phylum Cnidaria. This indicates that all three transcriptomes are highly composed of transcript annotations from our target organism (i.e., T. dohrnii) as opposed to contaminant, non-target organisms that may naturally occur with T. dohrnii (e.g., protozoans, fungi, etc.). In addition, processes involved in the synthesis of cell components were highly suppressed in the Cyst. 2007). One example is alkaline water, claimed to slow aging by reducing oxidative stress. 2014). Supplemental material available at figshare: https://doi.org/10.25387/g3.9943517. Leclre L, Copley RR, Momose T, Houliston E. Curr Opin Genet Dev. This raises doubts about whether its supposed anti-aging abilities would apply to humans. Indeed, the peptidergic nervous system of the T. dohrnii medusa appears almost entirely dismantled in the cyst, where few scattered RFamide- and GLWamide- immunoreactive cells are barely or no longer detectable (A. DElia, J. Schmich, and S. Piraino, unpublished data). 2013) (Table 1). The FatiGO (Al-Shahrour et al. government site. As explained in a new study, the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii "is the only species able to rejuvenate repeatedly after sexual reproduction, becoming biologically immortal," and its DNA might. They originate in the Caribbean Sea (nutricula) and the Mediterranean (dohrnii). 2015) (Additional File F). PMC Three replicates of the cyst stage with the highest quantity/concentration (ng/uL) of DNA based on NanoDrop readings, and highest quality of RNA based on the detection of the strongest 18S (1.8kb-2kb) and 28S (4kb-5kb) bands with the least degradation, samples C1, C2 and C3, were selected for further processing. That takes a fair amount of energy. 2017; Hroudova et al. #: MCR85102) was used to extract total RNA from multiple replicates of individual cysts collected in Panama. Broader categories of aging (reference to GO:0010259, GO:007568), were also found to be under-expressed in the Cyst when compared to the Polyp stage (Table 4). Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the immortal jellyfish, is a species of small, biologically immortal jellyfish [2] [3] found worldwide in temperate to tropic waters. 8 May 2014 By Nadia Whitehead A tiny jellyfish named Turritopsis dohrnii is capable of living forever, Motherboard reports. 222229 in. Reverse development in Cnidaria. This seems to be thanks to a particular set of genes called FoxO genes, which are found in animals from worms to humans and play a role in regulating how long cells will live for. In its immature polyp state, it is made up of stolons (stems) and upright branches with feeding polyps capable of forming medusa buds. The giant barrel sponge: over 2,000 years. Amazingly, its cells then reaggregate, not into a new medusa, but into polyps, and from these polyps emerge new jellyfish. Specifically, there were 142 under-expressed categories when the Cyst is compared to the Polyp (Additional File J), 3 when compared to the Medusa (Additional File K), and 84 when compared to both stages combined (Additional File L). In effect, it has prevented its own death. Normalized reads resulting from Trinitys in silico normalization were mapped back to the assembled contigs for each transcriptome to evaluate the completeness of its assembly. Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the immortal jellyfish, is a species of small jellyfish found in the Mediterranean Sea and in the waters off Japan. In recent decades, we've come leaps and bounds in treating and preventing some of the world's leading age-related diseases, such as coronary heart disease, dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Sugimoto K., Gordon S. P., and Meyerowitz E. M., 2011. The jellyfish has skipped to an earlier life stage to begin again. Metformin also shows mixed results in its effects on aging depending on which model organism is used (such as rats, flies or worms). The majority of the top-hits belonged to four cnidarian species, H. vulgaris, E. pallida, A. digitifera, and N. vectensis, ranked 1st to 4th in the same order in all three stages (Additional File G, B-D). Miglietta et al. They're characterized by gelatinous, bell shaped bodies with long tentacles that drift below them to catch food and warn off potential attackers. Transdifferentiation is the dedifferentiation of a differentiated cell into some sort of stem cell, and then differentiation of that into another cell type. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. 2015; Ames et al. Authors would also like to thank Texas SeaGrant, Texas A&M University Galveston's MARB Mini Grant, GGSA Grant, Luke and Erma Lee Mooney Travel Grant for providing funding to YM, Texas A&M University's Genomics Seed Grant, TAMU PESCA Grant, National Science Foundation ARTS grant N DEB-1456501 to MPM, and the Italian Ministry of Research and Education (MIUR, Italy) grant N 2015NSFHXF - PHENIX to SP. Our results indicate that the regulation of telomere length may be a key component of the overall regulatory network enabling T. dohrniis life cycle reversal, and should therefore be the focus of future studies. Mol Phylogenet Evol. Our results are consistent with the finding of Hasegawa et al. A systematic review of the literature shows there is no research to support or disprove beliefs about alkaline water being a genuine biohack. Clipboard, Search History, and several other advanced features are temporarily unavailable. However, it is less well-known in this region as a medusa (Schuchert 2004). All supplementary files have been uploaded to figshare. We still dont know exactly how it all works, but we do know that these genes clearly play an important role in maintaining Hydras endless youthfulness. T. dohrnii colonies bearing medusa buds were collected in Otranto, Italy in July 2013. The Cyst incorporated 831 transcripts in the DNA repair category, while the Polyp and Medusa incorporated 742 and 574 transcripts in the category, respectively. Accessibility The simple fool's guide to population genomics via RNASeq: an introduction to highthroughput sequencing data analysis. It was first described from Naples, Italy, and is a common hydroid on rocky substrates in the Western Mediterranean and Adriatic where its distribution is considered cryptogenic. The cDNA from the polyp library was sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform (Illumina Sequencing Technologies) generating 83bp paired-end (PE) reads (Additional file B). They concluded that this disjunct distribution could not be explained by long-distance dispersal of medusae in ballast water, or polyps on ships hulls. Medusae of Turritopsis dohrnii undergo reverse development in response to physical damage, adverse environmental conditions, or aging. Furthermore, in the Cyst stage, the category DNA repair (GO:0006281) was also found to be over-expressed in all three comparative analyses (Table 4). The Cyst stage on the other hand, assembled from the longest150 bp PE Illumina HiSeq reads, had the longest contigs. On the other hand, significantly enriched GO terms in the Polyp were associated with cellular proliferation and embryonic and neural development (reference to GO:0008283, GO:0043009, GO:0031175) (Figure 2A). Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, This may seem like an idea reserved mainly for cranks and science fiction writers, but it's not. NOW WATCH: Why fruit flies are so hard to kill. The sequencing library for the polyp stage was constructed by University of Notre Dames Genomic and Bioinformatic Core Facility using the TruSeq RNA Sample Prep Kit v2 (Illumina Sequencing Technologies (Cat. In addition, 54 categories with the key word development were reported to be under-expressed in the Cyst in comparison to the Polyp (Additional File J), 6 categories compared to the Medusa (Additional File K), and 29 categories when compared to both the stages combined (Additional File L). However, the T. dohrnii can reverse its aging process even after maturing to adulthood, returning to a polyp on the seafloor, the researchers said. The categories Telomere maintenance (GO:0000723) and Telomere organization (GO:0032200) was over-expressed in the Cyst as compared to the Polyp and both stages combined. Bethesda, MD 20894, Web Policies 2014; Brinkman et al. government site. Ponce D., Brinkman D., Potriquet J., and Mulvenna J., 2016. Understanding these mechanisms could also help us understand why humans and other animals evolved to age in the first place. RNA from pooled polyps (i.e., multiple polyps in colony) were extracted, prepped into cDNA libraries and sequenced using the Illumina MiSeq platform (83bp PE reads) and the medusa using HiSeq2500v4 (125bp PE reads). Perhaps it's a good thing we won't be diving into the fountain of youth any time soonif ever. This small, predatory marine invertebrate has two stages in its life cycle: a polyp-forming colony called a hydroid and the more mobile, recognisably jellyfish-like form called medusae. She said that in a few days, that cyst changes into a polyp and eventually these colonies form buds and a new jellyfish. One study found a faster rate of telomere shortening resulted in a shorter lifespan in many species, including humans. Do they hold the key to eternal youthfulness for humans, too? However, while the latter two sharply drop their reversal capacity after reaching maturity, T. dohrnii is the only one that maintains its high rejuvenation potential (up to 100%) in postreproductive stages, reaching bio- 2014). For most other jellyfish, this stage is the end of the line. Poore School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, UNSW Sydney, Javascript must be enabled for the correct page display. This was reflected in our assembly statistics (Table 1), as the Polyp transcriptome, constructed from 83bp PE Illumina MiSeq reads, had the shortest contigs among the three transcriptomes. In this grey area, biohackers emerge. 2018 (Miglietta et al. The inhibition of the Notch signaling pathway has been shown to be associated with cell transdifferentiation in specific systems (Vega et al. This implies that despite exhibiting the lowest percentage of reads mapped back to the contigs (Additional File D), no significant amount of genetic information was lost in the unmapped reads. 2014; Sanders and Cartwright 2015a, 2015b; Ortiz-Gonzlez et al. Normalized reads (resulting from Trinitys In silico normalization) from all three stages were mapped back to the assembled contigs via TopHat2.1 and CLC Genomic Workbench v8 alignment software using default parameters to evaluate the quality of the assemblies (Additional File D). As with so many findings, the so-called 'immortal jellyfish' was discovered by accident. The BUSCO v2.0 software (Simo et al. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Ayala-Sumuano J.-T., Licea-Navarro A., Rudino-Pinera E., Rodrguez E., and Rodrguez-Almazn C., 2017. RS-122-2001)) following manufacturers protocols. KK102) as the 3rd highest top-hit species, which is most likely the outcome of contamination. RNA-sequencing; cell transdifferentiation; immortal jellyfish; life-cycle reversal; reverse metamorphosis. The cyst represents the intermediate stage between a reverting medusa and a healthy polyp, during which cell transdifferentiation and tissue reorganization take place. 56(23), 137140 (1992). 2009). A genetic study of Turritopsis identified seven species from the Atlantic and Pacific, four of which are unnamed (Miglietta et al. The top 10 over-expressed gene enrichment categories in the Cyst vs. Medusa comparison involved processes such as the synthesis and metabolism of cellular compounds, particularly related to nitrogen. De Wit P., Pespeni M. H., Ladner J. T., Barshis D. J., Seneca F. et al., 2012. An official website of the United States government. Numbers of tentacles in adult medusae vary regionally with: 8 in Bocas del Toro, Panama; 12-24 in Italy; and 14-24 in Japan, probably in part due to environmental influences. The RNA-sequencing datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available in NCBIs GenBanks repository under NCBI BioProject ID: PRJNA563171, Accession #: SAMN12669943 - SAMN12669945. FatiGO: a web tool for finding significant associations of Gene Ontology terms with groups of genes. doi: 10.1093/dnares/dsac047. Wnt signaling in stem and cancer stem cells. The lifespan of a Greenland shark: up to 500 years. Despite our many human endeavours to escape or delay the process of ageing, it seems to be an inevitable part of life. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. In a typical hydrozoan life cycle (Figure 1), adult, free-swimming medusae release gametes into the water column for external fertilization, producing short-living planktotrophic planula larvae with limited dispersal distance (Bouillon et al. In all, the Cyst incorporated 56 transcripts in the Notch signaling category, while the Polyp and Medusa incorporated 109 and 78 transcripts in the category, respectively. 2015; Ponce et al. Using BUSCO v2.0, we conducted assessments on each stage-specific assembly using the Metazoa database. Careers. Description and life cycle of a new species of the genus. Biological processes that occur at the cyst stage such as telomerase activity, regulation of transposable elements and DNA repair systems, and suppression of cell signaling pathways, mitotic cell division and cellular differentiation and development may be involved in T. dohrniis reverse development and transdifferentiation. Please, allow us to send you push notifications with new Alerts. (2016) (Hasegawa et al. 3) Piraino, S. et al. technology (Tech Xplore) and medical research (Medical Xpress), This suggests if we can protect these structures, we could greatly increase our lifespan. The telomerase reverse transcriptase isoform x1 enzyme was found annotated in all three of transcriptomes with a e-value of 0.00. And then, under the eyes of Volker, the mildly stressed medusae (a little pinch with a tweezer is enough) transformed into polyps. They found that the new medusae, if stressed, fell on the bottom of the jar and transformed straight into polyps, skipping the fertilisation and larval stages (see above). De novo assembly and characterization of four anthozoan (phylum Cnidaria) transcriptomes. Last year, scientists studying the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans (a common model organism for aging-related research) managed to manipulate its biochemical pathways. Myxozoans: ancient metazoan parasites find a home in phylum Cnidaria. This is a tiny structure within a cell that protects chromosomes from deterioration. Our results also suggest that the Medusa incorporated fewer number of contigs pertaining to telomere maintenance and organization, 156 and 163, respectively (Additional File K). An expectation value cutoff of e-3 is generally considered an acceptable but liberal threshold (De Wit et al., 2012). The drug metformin, usually prescribed to manage type 2 diabetes, has also been touted as a way to delay the onset of a range of age-related diseases, thus increasing "health-span" (how long we remain healthy). See this image and copyright information in PMC. Some cell types and sensory organs (e.g., subumbrellar striated muscle cells, nerve rings, ocelli) are present only in the medusa, whereas other cell types (e.g., ectodermal secretory cells producing the chitinous outer persiarc) occur in the polyps only. RNA-seq reads from the polyp and medusa were processed through the Trinity version 2.2.0 software pipeline where quality trimming via trimommatic (MacManes 2014), read normalization via in silico normalization, and de novo transcript assembly was conducted using default parameters (Additional file B). The over-expression of these categories likely reflects the nature of the study system in which reverse development is induced by stressors, while the inhibition of a large number of pathways associated to the response to stimuli in the Cyst is likely attributed to the lack of sensory organs, structures, and recognizable nerve cells, and the fact that the ectodermal cells are separated from the outer environment by the perisarc. High-throughput functional annotation and data mining with the Blast2GO suite. Even though they don't have brains, jellyfish are actually the oldest multicellular creatures on earth, older than even the dinosaurs! For example, the "immortal" jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii can revert to a juvenile stage of life and seemingly escape the process of aging. 2015) was used to assess the completeness of gene content in each assembly. I brought them to Volker and we obtained the newly liberated medusae. Inhibition of Notch signaling enhances transdifferentiation of the esophageal squamous epithelium towards a Barretts-like metaplasia via KLF4. To date, theres only one species that has been called biologically immortal: the jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii. In humans, our telomeres tend to get shorter as we age. Technau U., Rudd S., Maxwell P., Gordon P. M., Saina M. et al., 2005. For general inquiries, please use our contact form. In Bocas del Toro, Panama in July 2015, newly released medusae from polyps found in the field were isolated in glass bowls and starved to induce into cysts (24-48 hr). 6) Piraino, S. et al. Notch signaling pathway (GO:0007219) was also reported to be significantly under-expressed in the Cyst (Additional File R). This work provides baseline information to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying both cell transdifferentiation and life cycle reversal in T. dohrnii. The pooled reads were processed using the Trinity pipeline using default parameters for transcriptome assembly. After being collected and reared in our lab, our Turritopsis hydroid released medusae. This . Another compound of interest is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). Generation and analysis of transcriptomic resources for a model system on the rise: the sea anemone Aiptasia pallida and its dinoflagellate endosymbiont. Identify the news topics you want to see and prioritize an order. Focusing on the few species that can be reared easily in the laboratory is a myopic attitude that prevents us from finding other marvels. Two of the datasets that had high alignment percentages and low percentages of broken reads were chosen (Additional File C) and pooled together. 45,405 out of 92,659 (49.00%) contigs in the Polyp, 33,836 out of 74,639 (45.33%) contigs in the Medusa, 38,565 out of 86,373 (44.65%) contigs in the Cyst assembly showed significant similarity to proteins in the NR database in the BLASTx step (Additional File H). 2023 Mar 14;120(11):e2217389120. During the metamorphosis, cell transdifferentiation occurs. Epigenetic changes are mechanisms that can determine which genes are turned on or off in offspring. A) Cyst vs. Polyp comparative functional gene enrichment analyses reduced to the most specific biological processes categories. An expectation value cutoff of e-3 was utilized to perform BLASTx against the NR database. Thus, the completeness of our transcriptome was further tested using the BUSCO v2.0 software (Simo et al. On the optimal trimming of high-throughput mRNA sequence data. The top three most specific GO categories significantly over-expressed in the Cyst when compared to the Polyp were related to DNA biosynthesis, integration, and telomere maintenance (reference to GO:0006278, GO:0015074, GO:0000723) (Figure 2A). We know that ageing in humans is thanks to a multitude of factors, many of which we still dont entirely understand. Some studies suggest this can result in cognitive dysfunction. She said the process of transdifferentiation is poorly understood. Chordate embryonic development was an unusual GO category to find enriched in any stage of T. dohrnii, an invertebrate, basal metazoan. At the cellular level, it means cells stop dividing and they eventually die. 2008) was used to assigned functional annotation to the three stage-specific transcriptomes. Instead of gradually deteriorating over time, a Hydras stem cells have the capacity for infinite self-renewal. It is present in most other animals, including humans, but after passing the embryonic life stage, levels of telomerase in most other cells decline and are not sufficient for constantly re-building telomeres. From a scientific point of view, jellyfish are very simple invertebrates that have weird and unique life cycles and capabilities, Miglietta said. Aspects of Hydrozoan Biology, Scientia Marina. As time passes, our fertility declines and our bodies start to fail. Texas A&M researchers say conserving the endangered species will require action both on land and at sea. 2019), and ancestral non-metazoan ESTs have been conserved and found in Nematostella vectensis and Acropora millepora (Technau et al. It remains stuck in place for some time, growing into a little colony of polyps that share feeding tubes with each other. Provided by There is a word for it: senescence. This cycle can repeat indefinitely, potentially rendering it biologically immortal. When the medusa the immortal jellyfish ( Turritopsis dohrnii) dies, it sinks to the ocean floor and begins to decay. Consequently, the ontogeny reversal of T. dohrnii involves cell transdifferentiation, a reprogramming of structural and functional commitment and gene expression of well-differentiated, somatic cells into other cell types either directly, or through a preparatory return to a state of poor differentiation (Okada 1991; Schmid 1992). Lobsters continually grow larger and larger, but their shells cant change size, meaning a lifetime of ditching too-small shells and growing a brand-new exoskeleton each time.