Scientists uncover the secrets of this extraordinary animal's eternal youth. Highly conserved genes ensure the lifelong development of neurons and glandular cells in sea anemones.

Eternal Youth

Animals like sea anemones appear to live forever. They don't seem to be affected by growing older or the detrimental effects that people endure with time. However, the precise causes of their eternal youth remain mostly unknown.

The sea anemone Nematostella vectensis' genetic fingerprint demonstrates that these extraordinarily old animal phylum members use the same gene cascades for brain cell development as more advanced creatures. Throughout the anemone's lifespan, these genes also keep the equilibrium of all the cells in the organism. A team of developmental biologists led by Ulrich Technau of the University of Vienna recently reported their findings in the journal Cell Reports.

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Studying Animal Biology

Almost all animal organisms are composed of millions, if not billions, of cells that assemble in complex ways to form various tissues and organs. These tissues and organs are composed of a variety of cell types, including different types of neurons and gland cells. However, it is still being determined how this vital balance of various cell types originates, how it is controlled, and if the many cell types of various animal creatures share a common ancestor.

The research team under the direction of Ulrich Technau, an evolutionary developmental biologist and director of the University of Vienna's Single Cell Regulation of Stem Cells (SinCeReSt) research platform, has uncovered the diversity and evolution of every type of nerve and gland cell as well as the developmental origins of those cells in the sea anemone Nematostella vectensis.

They employed single cell transcriptomics, a technique that over the past ten years has transformed both biomedicine and evolutionary biology, to accomplish this.

With this, whole organisms may be reduced to a single cell, allowing the decoding of all the genes that are now expressed in each particular cell. The genes that different cell types express differ from one another fundamentally. Therefore, single cell transcriptomics may be used to identify each cell's molecular signature, according to Julia Steger, the primary author of the present study.

Cells in the research that shared a fingerprint were grouped. Due to the distinct expression patterns of each cell type or cell at a developmental transitional stage, scientists could distinguish between them. It also made it possible for the researchers to pinpoint the stem cell and progenitor populations that were shared by the various tissues.

Surprising Discovery

They were surprised to discover that genetic labeling in living animals could demonstrate the origin of neurons, glandular cells, and other sensory cells from a single common progenitor population, contrary to earlier theories. Certain vertebrate gland cells also have neural activities, so this may point to a very long evolutionary history of gland cells and neurons.

These common ancestor cells arise as a result of a unique gene. The scientists also demonstrated in knockout tests that SoxC is expressed in all precursor cells of neurons, gland cells, and cnidocytes and is crucial for the development of all these cell types.

According to Technau, "Interestingly, this gene is not unfamiliar: It also plays a crucial role in the development of the nervous system in humans and many other animals. This and other data show that these essential regulatory mechanisms of nerve cell differentiation seem to be conserved across the animal kingdom."

Comparing Genetics

By contrasting various life stages, the authors also discovered that in sea anemones, the genetic mechanisms of neuron growth are preserved from the embryo to the adult organism, contributing to the balance of neurons throughout Nematostella Vectensis' lifespan.

This is significant because sea anemones, unlike people, can repair lost or damaged neurons throughout their lifetimes. This prompts the issue of how the sea anemone controls the maintenance of these processes into the adult stage, which is more complicated creatures only occur in the embryonic stage, for further study.

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