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The phrase that all living things must die seems to have no effect on this marine animal. Yes, he is hydrawhich is said to be an animal that can live forever.
Hydra are a group of small, soft-bodied invertebrates that slightly resemble jellyfish. Amazingly, Hydra has the potential to live forever.
Quoted via page Live Sciencebasically a hydra’s body consists of stem cells which will continue to regenerate through duplication or cloning.
Thus, he was able to regrow his head even though it had been severed and even lost. How could that be?
Ability of the Eternally Living Hydra
Hydra is said to be able to renew their own cells without a time limit. Thus, the researchers were curious and looking for answers as to how the hydra’s genome could direct its cells to grow a new head.
The results are stunning. Not only was it able to grow heads, it was found that gene activity during replacement head growth in hydras differed from previous genetic instructions.
Thus it is stated that the genetics of the new hydra head is different from the growth of the hydra head when it is just sprouting or emerges directly from the mother’s body during asexual reproduction.
For information, the genus Hydra is part of Cnidaria, which is the same phylum as jellyfish, sea anemones, and corals. At least there are currently 20-30 species of Hydra.
These animals are very small with a length of up to 0.8 inches (20 millimeters). It has 10-12 tentacles surrounding its head.
Aide Macias-Muñoz, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues explained that scientists actually knew that hydras could regenerate when they were present nearly 280 years ago.
Hydra Head Growth Genome Research
Various studies have been conducted to determine the ability of the hydra to live forever. One of them is the existence of a gene that can control the growth of the hydra’s head.
When a hydra’s head is decapitated, a group of regulatory cells at the top of the hydra’s body will send a signal to cells near the source of the problem. At that time the process of forming a special network for the new head will begin.
The research was conducted by identifying more than 27,000 genetic factors that play a role in hydra regeneration. After that, the researchers mapped these factors into smaller sections.
The result is that there are several thousand elements that act as an ‘on/off switch’ in the hydra genome that functions actively when a new head is to be grown.
Researchers noticed that not all severed heads of hydras grow and are created equal.
When a hydra sprouts, it takes about 72 hours to grow a head, while regenerating a replacement head takes about 48 hours. Researchers also identified 298 differences in gene patterns between the two processes.
“During breathing, genes (including those involved in head regulation) appear to slowly and steadily increase over time. In contrast, during regeneration, genes have a more dynamic expression, some rapidly increasing and then decreasing, as well as having pattern peaks at different points in time. in regeneration,” said Aide Macias-Muñoz.
This study provides the first evidence of a problem with genetic instructions for head growth in hydras. As a result, it was discovered that hydras may have an entirely different set of ‘blueprints’ or growth heads designs between regenerating and growing from budding.
But Can Hydra Really Live Forever?
The answer is yes and no.
No because they would have died under natural conditions due to threats from predators and disease. The answer is yes, is that when the hydra is not exposed to these external hazards, they can regenerate forever.
Daniel Martínez, a biology professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California describes his findings regarding the lack of senescence in hydras,
“They (hydra) don’t seem to age, so potentially, they are immortal,” concludes Daniel Martínez.
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