Worm Took 46K-Year Nap, Then Woke Up and Got Busy

It's the longest recorded period of cryptobiosis in nematodes by far
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 28, 2023 4:05 PM CDT
After 46K Years, Possibly Extinct Worm Awoke, Reproduced
A nematode, "Panagrolaimus kolymaensis," is shown.   (Shatilovich et al, 2023, PLOS Genetics (CC-BY 4.0))

Scientists have revived a possibly extinct microscopic worm that survived in Siberian permafrost for nearly 50,000 years. Nematodes, better known as roundworms, were found inside a fossilized squirrel burrow some 130 feet underground near Siberia's Kolyma River in 2002, per the Wall Street Journal. Scientists successfully resuscitated the worms in a warm petri dish in 2018 but were unsure of their age and species. In a study published Thursday in PLOS Genetics, they reveal them to be a previously unknown and possibly extinct species, Panagrolaimus kolymaensis. New carbon dating on the permafrost in which the nematodes were found suggests they last awoke when Neanderthals and woolly mammoths wandered the Earth some 46,000 years ago.

Nematodes are one of the few organisms capable of cryptobiosis—a metabolic state of extreme inactivity in response to adverse environmental conditions, including freezing, desiccation, and oxygen deficiency. But this is the longest recorded period of cryptobiosis in nematodes by far. Previously, a Tylenchus polyhypnus nematode held the record after surviving being dried out in a herbarium for what now seems like a measly 39 years, per Live Science, while the Antarctic nematode Plectus murrayi survived frozen in moss for 25.5 years. Given the latest finding, study co-author Teymuras Kurzchalia, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany, suggests cryptobiosis in such nematodes "could be indefinite," per the Journal.

Could humans benefit from these processes? That remains unknown, but scientists hope that in learning more about the genes or proteins that aid cryptobiosis, they can gain insight that "could one day be harnessed to make people more resilient," per the Journal. A damage-suppressing protein specific to nearly indestructible tardigrades was previously inserted into human cultured cells, where it was found "to activate mechanisms of DNA damage repair more efficiently, promoting faster cell recovery and survival," according to a 2021 study. The revived nematodes are no longer living, but researchers do have descendants from asexual reproduction. They produced a sugar called trehalose, which is thought to protect cell membranes from dehydration. (A rotifer survived for 24,000 years.)

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