A borrowed protein from tardigrades can give us the radiation body shield

The wonderful seed of water and strange flexibility, or water bear may keep, only a key to making cancer treatment much more (water). This is because a team of researchers only found evidence that the protein produced by these microscopic creatures can protect our healthy cells from the scourge of radiotherapy.

Scientists conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, and other places of the new study, Published This Wednesday in The nature of biomedical engineering. In experiments with mice, the research team noted that the protein reduced radiation damage to normal cells, while allowing radiotherapy to target cancer cells. Researchers say the results can one day lead to an invaluable additional treatment for many cancer patients.

Tardiger is extremist, notorious for its great ability to survive some of the most sinful situations on Earth (and space). One of the conditions in which the creatures developed to bear on the severe doses of radiation – thousands of times more than a person can deal with – and one of the tricks they use to resist this radiation is the production of something called called Protein damage inhibitoryOr DSUP. It is believed that this protein, as the name suggests, is believed to cause damage to the DNA caused by radiation by linking with DNA threads and preventing it from separation as usual.

The research team decided to test whether it was possible to move the Tardigrade body shield safely against radiation to other animals, from mice.

Using a flexible technique, making the team possible for some cells in the mice to temporarily produce DSUP (just a few hours), then detect the cells to radiation. The researchers specifically chose the cells that line the mouth and rectal, since radiation is usually used to treat cancer in these areas.

As with tardigrades, the team’s mice seemed to have added protection from radiation damage. In experiments with mice with oral cancer, they also showed that a flexible treatment did not weaken the ability of radiation to kill nearby cancerous cells.

The researchers wrote in their paper: “The strategy may be widely applicable to the protection of healthy tissue from DNA addiction,” the researchers wrote in their paper.

Of course, this research is still far from being applicable to human cancer patients, and it will take more study and switch to make this technology safe and practical for medical use.

Scientists are planning to create a lesser version of the protein less likely to stimulate an undesirable response from our immune system, for example. The researchers are also elsewhere Recently discovered Tardigrades which is more radiation resistant, indicating that DSUP is not the only tool for radiation that we can borrow from. But if the team continues to progress, it may eventually provide wide benefits 50 to 60 % of cancer patients Those who are subject to radiotherapy.

The researchers say that protein can even be used to protect astronauts from space -related radiation or to protect cancer patients from other sources of treatment caused by treatment, such as chemotherapy medications.

“The radiation can be very useful for many tumors, but we also realize that the side effects can be limited,” said the study author Giovanni Traversu, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and digestive specialist at Brigham Hospital and Women, News of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “There is an incomplete need regarding the help of patients to reduce the risk of damaging neighboring tissues.”

Tardigrades has always been one of the most wonderful animals around her because of its varied criticism. If we are lucky, we may one day harness this great power for ourselves.