| Budget Amount *help |
¥18,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥14,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥4,200,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥5,980,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,380,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥5,720,000 (Direct Cost: ¥4,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,320,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥6,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥5,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,500,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are small aquatic animals living in various habitats. They enter an almost completely dehydrated state upon desiccation and exhibit exceptional tolerance against various physical extremes, including direct exposure to space. Here, we identified a novel tardigrade-unique protein named ‘Dsup’ (short for damage suppressor) from a chromatin fraction of a radiation-tolerant tardigrade, Ramazzottius varieornatus. Dsup protein forms a complex with DNA in vitro and is co-localized with nuclear DNA in cells. We engineered human cultured cells to stably express Dsup constitutively, and demonstrated that Dsup-expressing cells exhibited a substantially suppressed occurrence of DNA-breaks after X-ray irradiation and exposure to ROS. Furthermore, survival after X-ray irradiation was significantly improved in Dsup-expressing cells, some of which even retain proliferative ability, though untransfected cells completely cease proliferation.
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