The amazing tardigrades also don’t age when they get frozen

sarahjay1 (69)memberin Popular STEM • 2 years ago

(Frank Fox / Wikimedia Commons https://bit.ly/3Ez87ia)

German biologists from the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomolecular Systems in Stuttgart discovered that tardigrades do not age in a state of cryobiosis.

The team led by Jessica Sieger froze tardigrades to -30 degrees Celsius several times, and found that the process did not reduce the overall lifespan of the animals in the active phase.

Previously, a similar effect was observed during anhydrobiosis, a dried state in which tardigrades lose almost all moisture.

Microscopic invertebrate tardigrades are able to survive the most difficult living conditions. For example, they withstand temperatures close to absolute zero and boiling water.

After a dose of radiation that exceeds the lethal dose for humans by tens of times, tardigrades not only remain alive, but are also able to happily lay eggs.

The animals even survived a ten-day stay in outer space.

One of the reasons for such survivability lies in the DNA protection system of tardigrades from damage.

INCREDIBLE ANIMALS
To survive such hardships, tardigrades can fall into a state of anhydrobiosis losimg up to 98% of moisture.

In anhydrobiosis, the little animals do not reproduce and are able to spend up to 30 years waiting for wetter conditions.

Studies have shown that this state not only helps tardigrades survive, but also stops their aging process.

Also, their active life does not change regardless of the time spent in anhydrobiosis.

Similar metabolic changes occur with tardigrades when they are frozen (cryobiosis), but its relationship with aging has not yet been studied.

now, Sieger’s team tested how the lifespan of tardigrades changes after freezing.

For this, 716 tardigrades of the same age were divided into 3 experimental groups for freezing and 1 control group.

The animals were frozen to -30 degrees Celsius for a week, after which they were slowly thawed for another 7 days and fed.

Such cycles were repeated until all animals died of old age.

Tardigrades of the control group, which were not frozen, lived less than the tardigrades of the experimental group - an average of about 72 days.

But the animals that went through the cycles of defrosting and freezing lived for almost 100 days.

Also, the biologists calculated the duration of the active state outside of cryobiosis and found out it was about 77 days.

These results suggest that tardigrades do not age in cryobiosis.

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