Mechanisms of anhydrobiosis-associated gene regulation in the cells and tissues of chironomid Polypedilum vanderplanki.

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15H05622
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Applied biochemistry
• Research Institution: Institute of Physical and Chemical Research
• Principal Investigator: Gusev Oleg 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 科学技術ハブ推進本部, マネージャー (30711999)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: anhydrobiosis / CAGE / desiccation / chironomid / transcriptomics

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The project was aimed to uncover tissue-specific genetic mechanisms of desiccation tolerance in anhydrobiotic midge Polypedilum vanderplanki by combination of several omics techniques. We defined a number of non-coding RNA , transcribed from multi-copy conservative regions of the genome, and those with the features of enhancer RNA (i.e. non-coding RNA transcribed from enhancers in the genome) with expression patterns correlated with that of anhydrobiosis-involved genes (for examples the genes located in ARIds region of the genome.
We found that genetic mechanism of tissue specificity and broad expression of protective genes across tissues is the strategy of anhydrobiosis and can be used for biomimetics. Next, using CAGE data, we demonstrated that, heat shock transcription factor (HSF1) is one of the key regulators of transcriptional activation in response to dehydration in the cells of the anhydrobiotic chironomid. We further confirmed it by RNAi experiments.

Free Research Field

Insect molecular biology and genomics