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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the of-mice-and-men dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Millions of people die every year from dehydration as a result of exposure and illness. In humans, even the most minor dehydration can compromise the kidneys causing lifelong, irreparable issues or even death. However, some animals living in desert environments are able to survive both acute and chronic dehydration. While these animals, like cactus mice, have evolved over time to deal with environmental stressors like dehydration, researchers at the University of New Hampshire have found it's not the physical makeup that is helping them survive, but rather their genetic makeup.

"Initially, we thought that maybe their kidneys are structurally different from people, but they're not," said Matt MacManes, assistant professor of genome enabled biology at UNH and lead author of the study. "However, when exposed to acute dehydration, no kidney injury was apparent, which would definitely be the case for humans exposed to similar levels of dehydration, suggesting their genes may be what's preventing widespread kidney damage."

"The kidney is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to dehydration," continues MacManes. "The exciting outcome of this research is that the molecular toolkit of the cactus mouse has orthologues, or related genes, in humans. These provide the potential for development of drugs or other therapies that could help protect the human body from the damages of dehydration." Such a response could be extremely valuable in a wide variety of situations -- for people with renal failure, where water is severally limited due to geography or possibly global climate change, for troops deployed in the desert, and perhaps even in space travel.

-- submitted from IRC

Journal Reference: Matthew David MacManes. Severe acute dehydration in a desert rodent elicits a transcriptional response that effectively prevents kidney injury. American Journal of Physiology - Renal Physiology, 2017; 313 (2): F262 DOI: 10.1152/ajprenal.00067.2017


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:50AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 16 2017, @07:50AM (#554601) Journal

    Good news: a pill to protect the kidney against severe dehydration will be available on the market in 5 years.
    The bad news: letting aside it will be expensive like hell and protected by patents, the administration mode will contain:
    * take one pill every 4 hours with copious amount of water
    * in case of adverse side effects, interrupt the pill administration but continue with the water

    (grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:44AM (2 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:44AM (#554611)

    I don't understand how kidney damage can be fixed by genes? There must surely be a physical mechanism which does something.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Bobs on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:05AM

      by Bobs (1462) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:05AM (#554637)

      Yes, the genes drive a physical mechanism the does the repairs.

      Humans currently do not have the instructions / sub-system to deal with major kidney damage.

      But these mice do.

      It is like how humans have a mechanism, coded in their genes to fully regenerate a lost finger tip. Lose a bit at the end and it can all grow back.

      But if you lose the entire hand at the wrist - it will not grow back. We don't have the (genetic) code to tell our body when and how to regrow it.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneration_in_humans [wikipedia.org]

      The idea is to find the genetic coding that will add a sub-routine to our bodies that
        a) recognizes damage has been done and
        b) initiates proper repair work and
        c) recognizes when it is fixed and tells it to stop (re)building kidney cells. (If no c) process, you end up with cancer. )

      Our body is like a general purpose computer and 3D-printer, sometimes needing new (genetic) code to allow new functionality.

      Make sense?

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:24AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Wednesday August 16 2017, @10:24AM (#554643) Journal

      Proteins are physical!

      The paper has much more specific information:

      The animals reacted via a series of changes in the kidney, which included modulating expression of genes responsible for reducing the rate of transcription and maintaining water and salt balance. Extracellular matrix turnover appeared to be decreased, and apoptosis was limited. In contrast to the canonical human response, serum creatinine and other biomarkers of kidney injury were not elevated, suggesting that changes in gene expression related to acute dehydration may effectively prohibit widespread kidney damage in the cactus mouse.

      [...] Animals reacted via a series of changes in the kidney, which included upregulation of genes responsible for 1) reducing the rate of transcription and 2) maintaining water and salt balance. Extracellular matrix turnover appeared to be substantially decreased, and apoptosis appeared to be limited. Serum creatinine and other markers of kidney injury were not elevated over baseline, which was different from Mus exposed to less severe dehydration (80), suggesting that acute dehydration was not responsible for widespread kidney damage in the cactus mouse.

      Cute mouse? [lpzoo.org]

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:47AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @09:47AM (#554636)

    I believe khallow will have something to say on this.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:17PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:17PM (#554672)

      I believe khallow will have something to say on this.

      Only if you can put somehow the cactus mice in relation with the thinning of middle class in America or with socialism. Or subsidized renewable energy.
      Then he'll step in and tell you the free market will (or would, if only left alone) automagically correct the situation by competitive evolution, so you don't need to lose your sleep. A good night to you, sir.

  • (Score: 2) by leftover on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:43AM (1 child)

    by leftover (2448) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @11:43AM (#554660)

    Humans genetically customized to live on Mars will certainly need this gene.

    I don't know whether I am kidding or not.

    --
    Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @12:20PM (#554674)

      I don't know whether I am kidding or not.

      FTFY
      And the most likely explanation: because probably you are not thinking.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 16 2017, @05:51PM (#554809)

    The kidney is the canary
    In the coal mine.

    The prairie is the primary
    In the coal mine.

    The sidney is the strawberry
    In the coal mine.

  • (Score: 2) by KiloByte on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:05PM

    by KiloByte (375) on Wednesday August 16 2017, @08:05PM (#554909)

    Isn't this the primary way US Blacks differ from those in Africa? Slave ships used to lose a good part of their "cargo" during the journey, mostly to dehydration.

    There are other genetic differences, but they are mostly only because of being correlated with the ability to hold water (ie, tribes with A also had B), while this one has a causal link.

    --
    Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
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