Naked diggers settled in Moscow State University
Naked diggers will be the key to human immortality, says biologist
Academician Vladimir Skulachev told RIA Novosti about why Moscow University created Russia's first colony of Cape naked diggers, "immortal" rodents, and why aging and death are "useless" for us an evolutionary program that can and should be turned off.
The naked digger (Heterocephalus glaber) is a unique mammal with many amazing properties. This hairless underground rodent the size of a mouse and weighing 30-50 grams lives in east Africa. In the 1970s, scientists discovered that these creatures live unusually long for their size, tens of times higher than normal, and are not susceptible to cancer. In addition, diggers practically do not feel pain and do not react to skin irritation when in contact with caustic acids.
Today, Lomonosov Moscow State University announced that the first colony of Cape naked diggers of 25 individuals was created within its walls, on the basis of which a group of biologists led by Academician Vladimir Skulachev, director of the Research Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, will study the secrets of their longevity, and will try to transfer them to the human population. Scientists hope that in a year their number will grow 10 times, and in October another colony of diggers may appear at Moscow State University. You can watch the diggers using a webcam installed in their colony.
As Skulachev says, he is a supporter of August Weissmann's theory, which postulates that death and aging are not random processes of aging of body tissues and cell death, but a clear evolutionary program aimed at forcing old organisms to give way to new generations of living beings.
"Old age and aging were specially "invented" by biological evolution for their acceleration. Once upon a time, living beings did not age, and then they began to age in order to evolve faster. This suggests the possibility of the existence of animals in which this system is broken. If Weisman is right, then we need to find a medicine that will cancel aging and make us immortal," the scientist notes.
Diggers, according to Skulachev, are unique creatures who managed to "remove" this program from their genome during evolution due to three factors – an unusually long life, the special social structure of their families and the absence of natural enemies.
The "removal" of the aging program from the diggers' genome, as the scientist notes, led to the fact that neotenia developed among diggers – figuratively speaking, diggers "do not grow up" and retain childhood traits throughout their lives. According to Skulachev, his group was able to identify 43 signs of neoteny in the anatomy, biochemistry and brain work of diggers, which are absent in rats and other rodents.
This discovery, as the biologist notes, is especially interesting in the context of the acquisition of immortality by man. Neoteny, as the scientist noted, is a characteristic feature of a person – for example, the shape of our skull and the whole appearance change little as the body grows. On the other hand, baby monkeys look more like humans than monkeys.
Humans live about twice as long as chimpanzees, despite their similar size and mass, which may be explained by neoteny and related longevity. On the other hand, we do not yet possess super-long life and potential immortality as diggers. As Skulachev explains, this may be explained by the fact that the species Homo sapiens has existed for only 200 thousand years, while the diggers have evolved for more than a million years. Their study, the scientist hopes, will help us understand how we can "turn off" the death program and achieve biological immortality.
– Vladimir Petrovich, in addition to MSU, the diggers are actively studied by Vadim Gladyshev's laboratory at Harvard University, whose representatives in recent years have deciphered the genome of these animals and discovered a number of unusual features of their anatomy. Do you keep in touch with them and do you exchange experiences?
– Yes, we cooperate with Gladyshev, we quote each other in our works. In fact, Gladyshev found several of the 43 signs I discovered, but he did not recognize them as neoteny. Now we have jointly applied for a grant to the RNF, found employees and rooms where we will conduct experiments. We have passed the first stage, and now this issue is being resolved by the Ministry, and we hope to receive approval.
– Biologists often "break" natural mechanisms in order to understand how they work and how they can be reproduced. Are you planning to conduct transgenic experiments with diggers?
– I personally will not conduct such experiments, I am not interested in this. This is some kind of fanatical goal – we really strive to prolong youth, and you want to force us to look for ways to shorten youth.
On the other hand, such approaches are a completely legal and scientifically justified method of conducting research, but this is not our sphere of scientific interests. We are now very much focused on experiments with practical results, and not on fundamental research.
– Another group of scientists with the participation of Russian biologists discovered three years ago a potential mechanism for protecting diggers from cancer – "heavy" molecules of hyaluronic acid. Are you conducting or will you be conducting experiments with this acid while working with diggers?
– It is not really clear yet whether this mechanism really works – in repeated experiments it has not yet been possible to achieve this result. I have great respect for Andrei Seluyanov and his colleagues, but, but we need to wait for confirmation, which, according to rumors, most likely will not be.
– Western scientists have repeatedly suggested that the longevity of diggers may be due to the fact that they live in an environment where there is very little food and where there are simply no "extra" calories. Will you conduct experiments on limiting the diet among the diggers?
– No, it's complete nonsense. This is completely out of character for diggers. It is necessary to separate things. Restriction of nutrition really prolongs life, this has been confirmed in the course of experiments, starting with unicellular yeast and ending with humans. For all these cases, the works that have been re-checked have been published.
On the other hand, we and the Germans and other biologists feed the diggers to the brim, without limiting them in anything. And in such conditions, the diggers have been living for more than 36 years, and do not think of dying. So you can see that the situation is different.
– Recently, biologists from the USA have shown that some worms can extend their life by almost twice, refusing to reproduce and moving into the so-called Dower stage of development. Given the social structure of the digger colonies, where only one female reproduces, can we say that something similar happens in them?
– No, that's not quite true. An animal in the Dower state can be compared to a person who took offense at the whole world, shrank and stopped actively reacting to the outside world. This state is, in fact, semi-existence and vegetating. It may be that recently discovered Greenland sharks, living for 400 years, are in such a state.
If you look at the diggers even briefly, you can immediately make sure that they are not in such a state. They are very active creatures, they are incredibly active, look at how they run around their loopholes and rooms in our nursery. Therefore, no, it cannot be said that their longevity is due to the transition to such a "semi-existence".
My colleagues came up with such a comic explanation for the longevity of the diggers and why subordinate females live as long as the queen of the colony – each of them dreams of becoming a mother, and they are waiting for the current head of the family to retire and this can happen.
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15.09.2016