Amazing stuff! Perhaps one day we will be able to transplant or adopt some useful genes from the lobster to humans?
"... the American lobster—a bottom-dwelling crustacean that lives up to 100 years in the wild. ... Lobsters do not grow weaker with age and only rarely suffer from cancers. Now, researchers have published the first high-quality draft of the lobster genome, yielding surprising insights about the animal’s immune system and genomic stability that may one day help answer fundamental questions about aging—not only in lobsters, but also in humans. ...
American lobsters (Homarus americanus) seem to only get better with passing years. They do not lose strength, experience large shifts in metabolism, or lose fertility with age. They also spend their whole lives growing bigger and bigger. ...
The researchers were surprised to find that, compared with mammals and fruit flies, the lobster has few genes that activate programmed cell death. In most animals, that process inhibits tumors and gets rid of diseased cells. ..."
American lobsters (Homarus americanus) seem to only get better with passing years. They do not lose strength, experience large shifts in metabolism, or lose fertility with age. They also spend their whole lives growing bigger and bigger. ...
researchers at the Gloucester Marine Genomics Institute (GMGI) launched a project to sequence the animal’s entire genome in 2015. But by 2017, the team had sequenced less than half of the genome using standard “short-read” technology, which could only process very small fragments of the lobster genome at a time. ...
By 2019, GMGI’s work had yielded the most complete lobster genome to date—capturing an estimated 72% of the entire sequence ...The researchers were surprised to find that, compared with mammals and fruit flies, the lobster has few genes that activate programmed cell death. In most animals, that process inhibits tumors and gets rid of diseased cells. ..."
"... Here, we report a high-quality draft assembly of the H. americanus genome with 25,284 predicted gene models. Analysis of the neural gene complement revealed extraordinary development of the chemosensory machinery, including a profound diversification of ligand-gated ion channels and secretory molecules. The discovery of a novel class of chimeric receptors coupling pattern recognition and neurotransmitter binding suggests a deep integration between the neural and immune systems. A robust repertoire of genes involved in innate immunity, genome stability, cell survival, chemical defense, and cuticle formation represents a diversity of defense mechanisms essential to thrive in the benthic marine environment. ..."
Here is the underlying research article:
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