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Tardigrades

uair01 said:
And someone on Twitter pointed to the original article:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.07978

Quantum and biological systems are seldom discussed together as they seemingly demand opposing conditions. Life is complex, "hot and wet" whereas quantum objects are small, cold and well controlled. Here, we overcome this barrier with a tardigrade -- a microscopic multicellular organism known to tolerate extreme physiochemical conditions via a latent state of life known as cryptobiosis. We observe coupling between the animal in cryptobiosis and a superconducting quantum bit and prepare a highly entangled state between this combined system and another qubit. The tardigrade itself is shown to be entangled with the remaining subsystems. The animal is then observed to return to its active form after 420 hours at sub 10 mK temperatures and pressure of 6×10−6 mbar, setting a new record for the conditions that a complex form of life can survive.
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So, my take on this is that it's a borg? lol Why do they want to link a tardigrade with a cubit? Not that I understand quantum entanglement. This is probably way over my head.
 
Japanese researchers have identified the proteins that enable tardigrades to survive extended periods of dehydration / desiccation.
Tardigrades Can Survive Decades Without Water, And We Finally Know How

Water is a key ingredient to all life on Earth, yet tardigrades with their near immortal-like powers can somehow endure being sapped of almost all their H2O.

Now, researchers have discovered another trick these chubby microscopic anomalies use to survive years of extreme dehydration. ...


"Although water is essential to all life we know of, some tardigrades can live without it potentially for decades," says University of Tokyo biologist Takekazu Kunieda. ...

When these aquatic animals find themselves in an environment that leaches away their water, tardigrades shrivel into a round form called a tun.

As Kunieda ... and colleagues explain in their paper, dehydrated tardigrades are exceptionally stable and can withstand many extremes including exposure to the vacuum of space and still manage to resuscitate themselves. ...

"It's thought that as water leaves a cell, some kind of protein must help the cell maintain physical strength to avoid collapsing in on itself," says Kunieda.

So, the researchers combed through a group of tardigrades known for their dehydration abilities called eutardigrades for proteins that could explain this phenomenon, finding 336 unique suspects.

"After testing several different kinds, we have found that cytoplasmic-abundant heat soluble (CAHS) proteins, unique to tardigrades, are responsible for protecting their cells against dehydration ..."

Using experiments in human and insect cells, the researchers were able to demonstrate CAHS proteins increase cell stiffness, buttressing the cell against shrinkage caused by lost water pressure. The proteins even protected cells against too much water pressure as well. ...

Called anhydrobiosis, this process can be reversed, allowing the tardigrades to pick up their lives where they left off, once more hydrating conditions return. ...

Neat biological tricks like these have allowed these eight-legged, yet somehow still adorable, animals to reach all corners of our planet – from scorching volcanic vents and the crushing pressure of our oceans' depths to tropical forests and icy tundra. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/tardigrades-can-survive-decades-without-water-and-we-finally-know-how
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the published research report. The full report is accessible at the link below.

Stress-dependent cell stiffening by tardigrade tolerance proteins that reversibly form a filamentous network and gel
Akihiro Tanaka, Tomomi Nakano, Kento Watanabe, et al.
PLOS Biology. Published: September 6, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001780

Abstract
Tardigrades are able to tolerate almost complete dehydration by entering a reversible ametabolic state called anhydrobiosis and resume their animation upon rehydration. Dehydrated tardigrades are exceptionally stable and withstand various physical extremes. Although trehalose and late embryogenesis abundant (LEA) proteins have been extensively studied as potent protectants against dehydration in other anhydrobiotic organisms, tardigrades produce high amounts of tardigrade-unique protective proteins. Cytoplasmic-abundant heat-soluble (CAHS) proteins are uniquely invented in the lineage of eutardigrades, a major class of the phylum Tardigrada and are essential for their anhydrobiotic survival. However, the precise mechanisms of their action in this protective role are not fully understood. In the present study, we first postulated the presence of tolerance proteins that form protective condensates via phase separation in a stress-dependent manner and searched for tardigrade proteins that reversibly form condensates upon dehydration-like stress. Through a comprehensive search using a desolvating agent, trifluoroethanol (TFE), we identified 336 proteins, collectively dubbed “TFE-Dependent ReversiblY condensing Proteins (T-DRYPs).” Unexpectedly, we rediscovered CAHS proteins as highly enriched in T-DRYPs, 3 of which were major components of T-DRYPs. We revealed that these CAHS proteins reversibly polymerize into many cytoskeleton-like filaments depending on hyperosmotic stress in cultured cells and undergo reversible gel-transition in vitro. Furthermore, CAHS proteins increased cell stiffness in a hyperosmotic stress-dependent manner and counteract the cell shrinkage caused by osmotic pressure, and even improved the survival against hyperosmotic stress. The conserved putative helical C-terminal region is necessary and sufficient for filament formation by CAHS proteins, and mutations disrupting the secondary structure of this region impaired both the filament formation and the gel transition. On the basis of these results, we propose that CAHS proteins are novel cytoskeleton-like proteins that form filamentous networks and undergo gel-transition in a stress-dependent manner to provide on-demand physical stabilization of cell integrity against deformative forces during dehydration and could contribute to the exceptional physical stability in a dehydrated state.

SOURCE / FULL RESEARCH REPORT: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001780
 
Here's a photo of a tardigrade that's used cryptobiosis / anhydrobiosis to desiccate itself as a dormant pseudo-corpse called a tun.

TardigradeInCryptobiosis.jpg
SOURCE:
Tardigrades survive being dried out thanks to proteins found in no other animals on Earth
https://www.livescience.com/tardigrades-survive-drying-out-proteins
 
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