Researchers from Stockholm University have succeeded for the first time in isolating the RNA of a long extinct animal. From samples of the remains of a Tasmanian tiger, they managed to sequence ribonucleic acids (RNA for short), which are very important carriers of information and functions in a cell.
As a team led by Emilio Mármol Sánchez of Stockholm University’s Science for Life Laboratory reports in the journal ‘Genome Research’, they have managed to extract RNA from a more than 100-year-old exhibit of a Tamanian tiger (often also called thylacine, nut). ) to win.
This is notable because it was previously believed that RNA would be destroyed in just a few days if not kept cool and protected from enzymes. According to the researchers, the remains of the thylacine (photo below) have been kept at room temperature in a museum in Stockholm since 1891.
Information about genes and proteins
According to the scientists, millions of RNA sequences have been isolated from samples of muscle remains and skin of the species, which has been extinct since 1936. From this, information could then be obtained about the animal’s genes and the proteins that were produced in the animal’s cells and tissue, they write.
“It is the first time we have gained insight into the existence of thylacine-specific regulatory genes such as microRNAs (short RNA molecules, note),” says study co-author Marc R. Friedländer of the Science for Life Laboratory at Stockholm University, quoted on their website.
The researchers are confident that the results of their study will have relevant implications for international efforts to revive extinct species – such as the Tasmanian tiger and woolly mammoth – as well as for the study of pandemic RNA viruses.
The last specimen died in the zoo in 1936
The shy species, once widespread across the Australian continent, was hunted from the 1800s by settlers who blamed thylacines for attacks on their livestock. The last known specimen died in 1936 in a zoo in Hobart, the capital of the Australian island state of Tasmania. An American company wants to revive the extinct species through genetic engineering.
Source: Krone
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