Octopus tweaks RNA in brain to keep head clear whether water is warm or coldExBulletin

The California octopus appears to be able to edit the RNA in its brain on a large scale, allowing it to keep its head sharp in both warm and cold water.

Tom Kleindinst/Marine Biology Laboratory

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Tom Kleindinst/Marine Biology Laboratory

The California octopus appears to be able to edit the RNA in its brain on a large scale, allowing it to keep its head sharp in both warm and cold water.

Tom Kleindinst/Marine Biology Laboratory

Octopuses are curious and smart. They solve mazes and puzzles, use tools, and are masters of camouflage. These complex abilities are enhanced by their sophisticated and gigantic brains.

Now, in my diary cellresearchers report that octopuses can edit genetic information to quickly rebuild their brains when faced with environmental changes.

These findings shed new light on the amazing adaptability of these shape-shifting creatures and may help scientists design treatments for problematic mutations in our own bodies. yeah.

With their sophisticated brains and complex nervous systems, octopuses are considered one of the most intelligent invertebrates on the planet. In other animals, such large brains usually need to be handled with caution.

Think about your own fragile brain. Encased in the skull, filled with oxygen, and regulated to operate at a relatively stable body temperature. “We spend a lot of energy maintaining a constant temperature,” he says. Josh RosenthalNeurobiologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. “And a lot of it is so that our nervous systems can function more efficiently.”

When it’s too hot (with fever) or too cold (with hypothermia), our brains get confused and start to malfunction. This is just a few degrees off the norm. Our bodies keep everything at a constant temperature.

Octopus doesn’t have that luxury. Their brains require as much storage as ours, but they swim in water with their floppy bodies, and their temperature can fluctuate by about 20 degrees.

“It’s hard to maintain a complex nervous system in the face of temperature changes,” says Rosenthal. “And that brings challenges.”

Tweak genetic recipes on the fly

The octopus has overcome that challenge with a unique trick hidden inside its cell. It has to do with a molecule called RNA that is used to translate DNA into the proteins that make up our bodies. For example, let’s say you want to make bread and walk into a library full of cookbooks.

“The cookbook itself has already been printed, so you can’t change it,” he says. Matthew Burke, a biologist at the University of St. Francis. “But all I can do is make a copy and bring it back to my kitchen and bake it there.”

Here, the cookbook is the DNA that is hardcoded and unchangeable, the bread is the protein your body wants to make, and the RNA is the copy of the recipe that tells you how to make it. RNA does not tend to change as much. It’s just a messenger.

But what if you’re missing an ingredient, such as butter?

“If you had instructions like that, you would be kind of depressed,” says Rosenthal. “But knowing that oil works just as well, and editing that recipe to add that gives us flexibility.”

Only a few percent of RNA is edited in the brains of most animals, from fish to birds to bees to humans. But in the brains of octopuses and their relatives, it happens on a massive scale, affecting more than 60%.

The researchers suspected that something in the animals’ environment might be causing fine-tuning, such as temperature. Burke decided to conduct an experiment with the help of the California two-spotted octopus, which rolls up to the size of a football.

“It looks a lot like a typical octopus, but it has two iridescent blue spots that try to scare away predators,” Burke says. They are mischievous and good at camouflage. And coastal habitats in southern California and northern Mexico fluctuate between hot summers and cool winters.

In the lab, Burke placed half an octopus in cold water and the other half in warm water. A few weeks later, he collected RNA from their brains.

“We found over 20,000 different positions on the various proteins that were edited,” Burke said, adding further fine-tuning in the cool environment.

Thus, octopuses modified their brains in response to temperature changes, presumably to maintain proper function. The same is true in the wild, where Burke collected individuals in summer and winter by spraying them with vinegar from underwater burrows.

An octopus can make these edits in less than a day. Compare this to DNA. DNA takes many generations to change. RNA offers a more flexible alternative.

Tweaking the RNA (editing the temporary copy of the recipe) changes the proteins the RNA tells the cell to make. For octopus, there is not just one preferred version of the protein. Rather, there are multiple versions of numerous proteins in animal brains, each suited for different scenarios.

“This study is the first to show that different proteins are expressed from the same gene under different conditions within the same organism.” i.e. Eisenberg, a physicist at Tel Aviv University. “And they probably have different functional behaviors suited to external temperatures.”

Internal life of an octopus

It is not yet clear how these changes will affect the octopus’ daily life.

“What we’d like to see in the future is what kinds of behaviors are affected by these different kinds of changes, things like reaction speed and camouflage ability,” he says. Robin CrookA neurobiologist at San Francisco State University, but not involved in the research.

Crook also notes that this strategy may not work in the face of climate change and ocean warming, as octopus edit more in colder temperatures. These octopuses can operate in different temperature ranges, but this may not be “a viable mechanism for escaping environmental changes as a result of human activity,” she says.

Octopuses live very different lives from ours, but their unique brains may one day prove useful to us.

“We’re trying to find ways to harness this ability therapeutically,” Burke explains. These include reducing pain and repairing harmful mutations that cause disease.

Octopuses can teach us a lot, he says.

“They’re fascinating and interesting, and we’re all not just on the outside in sight,” Burke says. “But inside too.”