#Are squids cephalopods how to#Given the ethical boundaries around genome editing with tools like CRISPR, he’s exploring how to use RNA editing instead. Rosenthal hopes to discover what role RNA editing might play in the intelligence of these undersea predators, because he wonders whether it might lead to treatments and therapies for cystic fibrosis and other diseases. Behind the animal’s head is a soft, elongated mantle: a muscular space containing its organs. The researchers can't say precisely when and where the RNA is edited or to what end, although they have shown that editing key brain proteins changes the function of those proteins. Like octopus and cuttlefish, squid are a type of cephalopod, Greek for head foot. That remains nothing more than a hypothesis. Perhaps RNA editing, adopted as a means of creating a more sophisticated brain, allowed these species to use tools, camouflage themselves, and communicate. A squid is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the superorder Decapodiformes. The researchers found many of the edited proteins in brain tissue, creating the elaborate dendrites and axons of the neurons and tuning the shape of the electrical signals that neurons pass. He hypothesizes that the development of a complex brain was worth that price. And that could one day lead to useful tools for humans. Or, as the researchers put it, "positive selection of editing events slows down genome evolution." More simply, these cephalopods don't evolve quite like other animals. In exchange for this remarkable adaptation, it appears these squishy, mysterious, and possibly conscious creatures might have given up the ability to evolve relatively quickly. But octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish (but not their dumber relatives, the nautiluses) edit their RNA, changing the message that gets read out to make proteins. In nearly every other animal, RNA-the middleman in that process-faithfully transmits the message in the genes. A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. That’s because the work, published today in the journal Cell, revealed that many cephalopods present a monumental exception to how living things use the information in DNA to make proteins. Given their remarkable intelligence and cunning ways, it takes a lot to surprise the biologists who study these wonderful creatures and their equally weird cousins the squids and cuttlefish.īut when Stanford University geneticist Jin Billy Li heard about Joshua Rosenthal’s work on RNA editing in squid, his jaw dropped. They also squirt ink, open jars, and occasionally pull a prank or two. They solve puzzles, use tools, and communicate with color. Squid are invertebrates, meaning they lack a true backbone, in the phylum Mollusca, which includes a variety of organisms including clams, snails and limpets.
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