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Blind Mexican Cave Fish Use Epigenetic System to Shut Down Eye Development

posted by takyon on Tuesday June 05 2018, @02:45AM   Printer-friendly
Science

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8093

An evolutionary adaptation that doesn't directly rely on new mutations - Blind cave fish harnessed an epigenetic system to shut down eye development

Mexican tetra swam from surface waters into their caves around 1.5 million years ago. Like naked mole rats—another species that lives underground, in perennial darkness—they have no eyes. But whereas key genes controlling eye development in naked mole rats have mutations that inactivate them, there are no such inactivating mutations in the genes of the Mexican cave fish.

But mutations aren't the only way to change gene activity, and new research suggests a different explanation for the fish's lack of eyes. Epigenetic regulation is a means of controlling gene activity that does not alter the DNA sequence of the genes themselves. Genes undergoing epigenetic regulation can still make normal proteins, but the amount of the protein they make is modulated.

One method of epigenetic regulation is the addition of methyl groups to the DNA that controls the activity of specific genes. It is efficient, since it can be used to alter a whole bunch of genes at once. And it seems to explain the Mexican cave fish eye degeneration that has occurred over the past million years—a proverbial blink of an eye in evolutionary terms.

An epigenetic mechanism for cavefish eye degeneration (DOI: 10.1038/s41559-018-0569-4) (DX)

Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2) by EventH0rizon on Tuesday June 05 2018, @02:51AM

    by EventH0rizon (936) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @02:51AM (#688698) Journal

    That is a fascinating finding if it plays out as the researchers suggest.

    And it's the closest we may ever get to real Lamarckian evolution.

    I think I can hear Stephen Jay Gould turning in his grave....

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @03:00AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 05 2018, @03:00AM (#688699)

    It's no different "a lifeform uses biology to defecate".

  • (Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:22AM

    by SanityCheck (5190) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @04:22AM (#688716)

    So this is the God's equivalent of commenting out code? (multi line at that)

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AnonTechie on Tuesday June 05 2018, @09:48AM

    by AnonTechie (2275) on Tuesday June 05 2018, @09:48AM (#688788) Journal

    I have seen blind fish in a cave in Oman. They are quite unique as described below:

    Cracking on the puzzle researchers have enough evidence to prove that the same school of fish which run down along the flow of the stream entering the cave lake during the rainy season. And therein starts their journey of evolution and mass generation. They lose their sight to evolution in course of time. Saving their energy in the dark is one prime reason. Same fish while exposed to light have been seen to recoup their sight, opening their eyelids and evading the blindness stage. The cavefish does not have eyes, but it can feel the obstacles in dark caves by puckering its mouth and producing bursts of suction.

    Blind fish of Al Hoota Cave [omanobserver.om]

    --
    Albert Einstein - "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
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