Skip to main content
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian
  • Log in
  • My Cart

Main menu

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses
  • Submit
  • About
    • Editorial Board
    • PNAS Staff
    • FAQ
    • Accessibility Statement
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Site Map
  • Contact
  • Journal Club
  • Subscribe
    • Subscription Rates
    • Subscriptions FAQ
    • Open Access
    • Recommend PNAS to Your Librarian

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Home
Home

Advanced Search

  • Home
  • Articles
    • Current
    • Special Feature Articles - Most Recent
    • Special Features
    • Colloquia
    • Collected Articles
    • PNAS Classics
    • List of Issues
  • Front Matter
  • News
    • For the Press
    • This Week In PNAS
    • PNAS in the News
  • Podcasts
  • Authors
    • Information for Authors
    • Editorial and Journal Policies
    • Submission Procedures
    • Fees and Licenses

New Research In

Physical Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Physics
  • Chemistry
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Applied Mathematics
  • Applied Physical Sciences
  • Astronomy
  • Computer Sciences
  • Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
  • Engineering
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics

Social Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Economic Sciences
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Political Sciences
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Social Sciences

Biological Sciences

Featured Portals

  • Sustainability Science

Articles by Topic

  • Agricultural Sciences
  • Anthropology
  • Applied Biological Sciences
  • Biochemistry
  • Biophysics and Computational Biology
  • Cell Biology
  • Developmental Biology
  • Ecology
  • Environmental Sciences
  • Evolution
  • Genetics
  • Immunology and Inflammation
  • Medical Sciences
  • Microbiology
  • Neuroscience
  • Pharmacology
  • Physiology
  • Plant Biology
  • Population Biology
  • Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
  • Sustainability Science
  • Systems Biology
Research Article

Extreme resistance of bdelloid rotifers to ionizing radiation

Eugene Gladyshev and Matthew Meselson
PNAS April 1, 2008 105 (13) 5139-5144; first published March 24, 2008; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0800966105
Eugene Gladyshev
*Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Matthew Meselson
*Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; and
†Josephine Bay Paul Center for Comparative Molecular Biology and Evolution, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA 02543
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: msm@wjh.harvard.edu
  1. Contributed by Matthew Meselson, January 30, 2008 (received for review November 9, 2007)

  • Article
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Rotifers of class Bdelloidea are common invertebrate animals with highly unusual characteristics, including apparently obligate asexuality, the ability to resume reproduction after desiccation at any life stage, and a paucity of transposable genetic elements of types not prone to horizontal transmission. We find that bdelloids are also extraordinarily resistant to ionizing radiation (IR). Reproduction of the bdelloids Adineta vaga and Philodina roseola is much more resistant to IR than that of Euchlanis dilatata, a rotifer belonging to the desiccation-intolerant and facultatively sexual class Monogononta, and all other animals for which we have found relevant data. By analogy with the desiccation- and radiation-resistant bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans, we suggest that the extraordinary radiation resistance of bdelloid rotifers is a consequence of their evolutionary adaptation to survive episodes of desiccation encountered in their characteristic habitats and that the damage incurred in such episodes includes DNA breakage that is repaired upon rehydration. Such breakage and repair may have maintained bdelloid chromosomes as colinear pairs and kept the load of transposable genetic elements low and may also have contributed to the success of bdelloid rotifers in avoiding the early extinction suffered by most asexuals.

  • desiccation
  • DNA repair
  • asexual reproduction
  • anhydrobiosis

Footnotes

  • ↵‡To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: msm{at}wjh.harvard.edu
  • Author contributions: E.G. and M.M. designed research; E.G. performed research; E.G. and M.M. analyzed data; and M.M. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • Received November 9, 2007.
  • © 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
View Full Text
PreviousNext
Back to top
Article Alerts
Email Article

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on PNAS.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Extreme resistance of bdelloid rotifers to ionizing radiation
(Your Name) has sent you a message from PNAS
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the PNAS web site.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Extreme resistance of bdelloid rotifers to ionizing radiation
Eugene Gladyshev, Matthew Meselson
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Apr 2008, 105 (13) 5139-5144; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0800966105

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Request Permissions
Share
Extreme resistance of bdelloid rotifers to ionizing radiation
Eugene Gladyshev, Matthew Meselson
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Apr 2008, 105 (13) 5139-5144; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0800966105
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 105 (13)
Table of Contents

Submit

Sign up for Article Alerts

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Materials and Methods
    • Acknowledgments
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & SI
  • Info & Metrics
  • PDF

You May Also be Interested in

Abstract depiction of a guitar and musical note
Science & Culture: At the nexus of music and medicine, some see disease treatments
Although the evidence is still limited, a growing body of research suggests music may have beneficial effects for diseases such as Parkinson’s.
Image credit: Shutterstock/agsandrew.
Large piece of gold
News Feature: Tracing gold's cosmic origins
Astronomers thought they’d finally figured out where gold and other heavy elements in the universe came from. In light of recent results, they’re not so sure.
Image credit: Science Source/Tom McHugh.
Dancers in red dresses
Journal Club: Friends appear to share patterns of brain activity
Researchers are still trying to understand what causes this strong correlation between neural and social networks.
Image credit: Shutterstock/Yeongsik Im.
White and blue bird
Hazards of ozone pollution to birds
Amanda Rodewald, Ivan Rudik, and Catherine Kling talk about the hazards of ozone pollution to birds.
Listen
Past PodcastsSubscribe
Goats standing in a pin
Transplantation of sperm-producing stem cells
CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing can improve the effectiveness of spermatogonial stem cell transplantation in mice and livestock, a study finds.
Image credit: Jon M. Oatley.

Similar Articles

Site Logo
Powered by HighWire
  • Submit Manuscript
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • RSS Feeds
  • Email Alerts

Articles

  • Current Issue
  • Special Feature Articles – Most Recent
  • List of Issues

PNAS Portals

  • Anthropology
  • Chemistry
  • Classics
  • Front Matter
  • Physics
  • Sustainability Science
  • Teaching Resources

Information

  • Authors
  • Editorial Board
  • Reviewers
  • Librarians
  • Press
  • Site Map
  • PNAS Updates

Feedback    Privacy/Legal

Copyright © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. Online ISSN 1091-6490