BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Tag: survivor

Uncovering One Mystery of Tardigrades

Tardigrades, are one of the more well known creatures of the microscopic world. Something that keeps them in the spotlight is their extreme survivability. However, when active tardigrades don’t have their toughness. They only have that survivability when they are dormant, or are in a state called suspended animation, read this blog to find out how they enter this state.

Tardigrades can be called water bears or moss piglets in addition to their official name. This is due to the fact that the location they are found in is typically in water in mossy or muddy areas. They are microscopic eight legged animals that when dormant are close to invincible. When needed, tardigrades can curl into a ball called a tun. One of the reasons they are able to do this is that water bears are invertebrates. When they are in a tun, tardigrades pull in their legs, release water, turn their insides to glass, and nearly stop their metabolism. Once in this state tardigrades can withstand radiation from x-rays and even trips into space.

Derrick Kolling, a chemist at Marshall University found that chemical changes called oxidation to the amino acid cysteine trigger the tun state, and they even found that when this process is reversed, it brings tardigrades out of their dormant state.

 

SEM image of Milnesium tardigradum in active state - journal.pone.0045682.g001-2

Scientists have wondered for a long time what causes tardigrades to go into the tun state, and this finding is an exciting discovery for the biology world. This discovery helps explain some unknown pieces of the biology of water bears as a tun, and there is even hope that this discovery can explain some biological aspects of other creatures in their respective tun state’s.

Kolling started this project almost out ofnowhere. After seeing tardigrades in the news frequently, he decided to find some and test them with an EPR Spectrometer, a device that studies atoms and molecules with unpaired electrons. This relates to our AP Biology class as we also found tardigrades for a lab, and we learned about their toughness, origins, and survivability.

After using the EPR Spectrometer to test a few different things, the researchers found that blocking cysteine oxidation prevented tardigrades from forming tuns triggered by exposure to high levels of salt or sugar. They found that blocking this oxidation also prevented water bears from surviving freezing. This suggests that cysteine oxidation is what triggers the tun state.

Prior to reading this, what did you think caused tardigrades to enter the tun state?

Do you think tardigrades really came from space?

Have you ever tried to find a tardigrade?

Post Includes edits and suggestions made by ChatGPT.

 

New Breast Cancer Gene Discovered

 

 

 

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Today, one of the most talked about cancers is breast cancer. Breast cancer is defined as cancer that forms in the tissues of the breast. There are two types of breast cancer: ductal carcinoma, which is most common and begins in the lining of the milk ducts (thin tubes that carry milk from the lobules of the breast to the nipple) and lobular carcinoma, which begins in the lobules (milk glands) of the breast.

According to a new study done by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and University of Cambridge, a gene has been identified to have a major association in aggressive subtypes of breast cancer. The research suggests that an overactive BCL11A gene causes the development of tripe-negative breast cancer.

The study was conducted in human cells and in mice. The study was important because one in five patients are affected by triple-negative breast cancer. From the conducted research, Dr. Walid Khaled discovered that by adding an active human BCL11A gene to a human or a mouse’s breast cells (in the lab) caused them to behave as cancer cells. Increasingly, Dr. Khaled concluded that “by increasing BCL11A activity we increase cancer-like behaviour; by reducing it, we reduce cancer-like behavior.”

This research and study is extremely important because from the results, the team was able to propose that BCL11A is a strong candidate for development of a possible targeted treatment. Typical treatments of breast cancer include radiation and chemotherapy as well as surgery. The most known surgeries are Lumpectomy/partial mastectomy (large portion of the breast is removed) and a full mastectomy (full removal of breasts)

I chose this article because I know many dear friends that have faced and survived the battle of breast cancer. I believe that spreading awareness and screening early is extremely important. In addition, I am very hopeful that new advances will be made so that others need not endure the excruciating fight of breast cancer.

 

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