Tardigrades' resistance to DNA damage
Tardigrades are microscopic aquatic animals inhabiting a wide variety of environments, including extreme environments such as abyssal zones and radioactive sources. They are well known for their ability to endure desiccation, freezing and high doses of ionizing radiation. Building on our recent results in the model species Hypsibius exemplaris and in two additional species, Acutuncus antarcticus, endemic of Antarctica, and Paramacrobiotus fairbanksi, which is cosmopolitan, our projects aims to unravel the molecular adaptations that allow tardigrades to resist high doses of DNA damage and expand our understanding of their resilience to extreme changes of environmental conditions. Through a combination of complementary molecular, cellular and comparative approaches, we will focus on the mechanisms of DNA repair involved and the role of tardigrade-specific proteins such as the TDR1 protein (for Tardigrade DNA damage resistance 1) which we recently found to be a novel tardigrade DNA binding protein capable of reducing the impact of a radiomimetic reagent when expressed in human cells. In parallel, we will expand our comparative transcriptomic analyses of response to ionizing radiation to phylogenetically distant species, which will inform us on the evolutionary history of the molecular adaptations studied and help to uncover novel tardigrade specific proteins involved in resistance to ionizing radiation.
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Imported from OpenAIRE Italy | Grant ANR-25-CE13-7344.
Open sourceOverview
Grant agreement ANR-25-CE13-7344 | TardiReD
Open sourceTardigrades are microscopic aquatic animals inhabiting a wide variety of environments, including extreme environments such as abyssal zones and radioactive sources. They are well known for their ability to endure desiccation, freezing and high doses of ionizing radiation. Building on our recent results in the model species Hypsibius exemplaris and in two additional species, Acutuncus antarcticus, endemic of Antarctica, and Paramacrobiotus fairbanksi, which is cosmopolitan, our projects aims to unravel the molecular adaptations that allow tardigrades to resist high doses of DNA damage and expand our understanding of their resilience to extreme changes of environmental conditions. Through a combination of complementary molecular, cellular and comparative approaches, we will focus on the mechanisms of DNA repair involved and the role of tardigrade-specific proteins such as the TDR1 protein (for Tardigrade DNA damage resistance 1) which we recently found to be a novel tardigrade DNA binding protein capable of reducing the impact of a radiomimetic reagent when expressed in human cells. In parallel, we will expand our comparative transcriptomic analyses of response to ionizing radiation to phylogenetically distant species, which will inform us on the evolutionary history of the molecular adaptations studied and help to uncover novel tardigrade specific proteins involved in resistance to ionizing radiation.