“This got me believing that octopuses may not just be great at modifying, however could have other RNA tricks up their sleeve too,” recalls Rajewsky. Rajewskys fascination with octopuses started years ago, during an evening see to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California.” They state if you desire to meet an alien, go diving and make buddies with an octopus,” says Rajewsky. The community is presently little, Rajewsky says that interest in octopuses is growing worldwide, including among behavioral scientists. Rajewskys team is now preparing to use a technique, established in Rajewskys laboratory, which will make the cells in octopus tissue visible at a molecular level.
Octopuses have complex “camera” eyes, as seen here in a juvenile animal. Credit: Nir Friedman
Cephalopods like octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish are extremely intelligent animals with complicated worried systems. A group of scientists has now shown that their advancement is linked to a remarkable expansion of their microRNA repertoire.
If we go far enough back in evolutionary history, we encounter the last known typical ancestor of humans and cephalopods: a primitive wormlike animal with very little intelligence and simple eyespots. Later on, the animal kingdom can be divided into 2 groups of organisms– those with backbones and those without. While vertebrates, especially primates and other mammals, went on to establish complicated and big brains with diverse cognitive abilities, invertebrates did not. With one exception: the cephalopods.
Scientists have long wondered why such a complex nerve system was only able to establish in these mollusks. Now, a global group led by researchers from the Max Delbrück Center and Dartmouth College in the United States has presented a possible factor. In a paper released in the journal Science Advances, they explain that octopuses possess an enormously expanded repertoire of microRNAs (miRNAs) in their neural tissue– reflecting comparable advancements that happened in vertebrates. “So, this is what links us to the octopus!” says Professor Nikolaus Rajewsky, Scientific Director of the Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology of the Max Delbrück Center (MDC-BIMSB), head of the Systems Biology of Gene Regulatory Elements Lab, and the papers last author. He discusses that this finding most likely means miRNAs play a basic role in the advancement of complicated brains.
By Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association
November 25, 2022
Octopuses have both a main brain and a peripheral worried system– one that can acting individually. Credit: Nir Friedman
In 2019, Rajewsky read a publication about genetic analyses conducted on octopuses. “This got me thinking that octopuses may not just be good at editing, but could have other RNA techniques up their sleeve too,” remembers Rajewsky.
The outcomes of this analyses were surprising: “There was certainly a lot of RNA editing going on, however not in locations that we believe to be of interest,” says Rajewsky. Provided that these genes were saved during cephalopod development, the group concludes they were plainly useful to the animals and are for that reason functionally essential.
Rajewsky has been investigating miRNAs for more than 20 years. Rather of being translated into messenger RNAs, which deliver the instructions for protein production in the cell, these genes encode small pieces of RNA that bind to messenger RNA and hence influence protein production. These binding websites were also saved throughout cephalopod evolution– another indicator that these unique miRNAs are of practical value.
Cephalopods playing with microRNAs (yellow): microRNAs might be connected to the development of intricate brains in cephalopods. Credit: Grygoriy Zolotarov
New microRNA households
” This is the third-largest expansion of microRNA households in the animal world, and the biggest beyond vertebrates,” says lead author Grygoriy Zolotarov, MD, a Ukrainian researcher who interned in Rajewskys laboratory at MDC-BIMSB while finishing medical school in Prague, and later. “To provide you a concept of the scale, oysters, which are likewise mollusks, have actually obtained just five brand-new microRNA families because the last ancestors they shared with octopuses– while the octopuses have gotten 90!” Oysters, adds Zolotarov, arent precisely known for their intelligence.
Rajewskys fascination with octopuses started years ago, throughout a night check out to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. Octopuses have likewise complicated “camera” eyes to humans.
If an octopus loses an arm, the arm remains sensitive to touch and can still move. The factor why octopuses are alone in having developed such complicated brain functions might lie in the truth that they utilize their arms really actively– as tools to open shells. Octopuses likewise show other signs of intelligence: They are very curious and can keep in mind things.
Alien-like creatures
” They say if you desire to satisfy an alien, go diving and make pals with an octopus,” states Rajewsky. Hes now preparing to join forces with other octopus researchers to form a European network that will allow higher exchange between the scientists. The community is presently little, Rajewsky says that interest in octopuses is growing worldwide, including among behavioral scientists.
” Since octopuses arent typical model organisms, our molecular-biological tools were really restricted,” states Zolotarov. “So we dont yet know exactly which types of cell reveal the new microRNAs.” Rajewskys team is now preparing to apply a technique, established in Rajewskys lab, which will make the cells in octopus tissue visible at a molecular level.
Reference: “MicroRNAs are deeply linked to the introduction of the complex octopus brain” 25 November 2022, Science Advances.DOI: 10.1126/ sciadv.add9938.