Gene Tardigrade mods a first step toward exposing their secrets

Small, fat and seemingly indestructible tardigrades may become a little less mysterious to science today, after Japanese researchers successfully developed what they hope is a technique that will allow them to be used in laboratories for tests – like fruit flies.

Tardigrades are famous for their remarkable ability to survive extremes, including loss of water; and even survival on the surface of spacecraft in the cooling vacuum of space. They are a constant source of speculation – how do extremophiles do it?

Studying the sequences of the individual protein-producing genes of these aquatic invertebrates is likely to reveal the key. For example, a ‘gel’ protein is suspected to help tardigrades survive long periods of dehydration.

Using a type of CRISPR gene editing, University of Tokyo researchers have demonstrated the ability to ‘knock out’ or ‘knock out’ specific genes.

DIPA-CRISPR works like a knife to cut and modify gene sequences, which enables the modifications to be passed on to offspring. It is hoped that successful implementation of the technique will allow a fleet of ‘modified’ tardigrades to be studied in laboratory settings, as is the case for specific laboratory fruit flies sometimes used for scientific studies.

“To understand tardigrades’ superpowers, we first need to understand how their genes work,” says Takekazu Kunieda, a biological scientist specializing in tardigrade research in Tokyo.

“My team and I have developed a method to edit genes – adding, removing or overwriting them – as you would computer data, in a very tolerant species of tardigrade: Ramazzottius varieornatus. This can now allow researchers to study delayed genetic traits, as they can create more lab-based animals, such as fruit flies or nematodes.

Having demonstrated the ability to pass gene modifications down the generations, the next step is to begin the process of modifying individual genes to try and ascertain their function or, more simply, how they provide their delayed “powers”.

With the ‘gel’ protein as a target, the Tokyo research team sees the potential for such proteins to aid in human applications, such as organ preservation.

“CRISPR can be an incredible tool to understand life and help in useful applications that can positively impact the world,” says Kunieda.

“Tardigrades not only offer us a glimpse of what medical progress might be possible for, but their range of remarkable traits means they had a remarkable evolutionary history, which we hope to reveal as we compare the genome their closely related creatures using our new DIPA-CRIPSR. – based technique.”

The research was published in the journal PLoS Genetics.