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"Damage Suppressor" Gene Found in Tardigrades, Inserted into Human Cells

posted by martyb on Thursday September 22 2016, @09:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the Shields-up! dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Scientists have found a damage suppressing gene in tardigrades that they have called "Dsup". It directs the production of a protein that can protect DNA, partially explaining tardigrades' resistance to the effects of radiation. The scientists also inserted the gene into human cells and found that Dsup-treated cells suffered less damage from X-ray exposure.

Extremotolerant tardigrade genome and improved radiotolerance of human cultured cells by tardigrade-unique protein (open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12808) (DX)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by inertnet on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:16AM

    by inertnet (4071) on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:16AM (#405083) Journal

    Who could benefit from this besides astronauts?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:26AM (#405085)

    Well, Musky, obviously. But he's so damn awesome, Musky already has the damage suppressing gene naturally.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:41AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:41AM (#405088)

      Mick Jagger can survive total dehydration.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:57AM

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:57AM (#405092) Journal

        He is already proving it.

        • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:52PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:52PM (#405104)

          73 years in and counting ... by now we can safely assume to have reached the 5 sigmas threshold on that experiment.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:00PM (#405093)

    Well, Bruce Banner for one.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by t-3 on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:58PM

    by t-3 (4907) on Thursday September 22 2016, @12:58PM (#405109)

    Everyone most likely. Light skinned peoples can have a surgery/treatment of some kinds and greatly reduce sun damage/skin cancer risks, maybe cancers in general can be prevented with this? Perhaps we can tinker with other genetics of these tardigrades and use them to seed mars and start producing an atmosphere or something?

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:06PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Thursday September 22 2016, @02:06PM (#405134) Journal

    Everyone suffers DNA damage, even if they don't go to space, take an air flight, or hang around at Chernobyl/Fukushima.

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  • (Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:03PM

    by SubiculumHammer (5191) on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:03PM (#405329)

    The Japanese

  • (Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:14PM

    by Bogsnoticus (3982) on Thursday September 22 2016, @11:14PM (#405332)

    All the ladies who fall victim to teenage pervs who buy the xray specs off the back of comics?

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