- The African lungfish can sleep for up to five years without any sustenance
- Researchers said that they slow down their biological clock during process
- Gene expression in liver compared during and after hibernation period
- Changes make the fish produce very little waste and conserve energy
- Understanding this process could be vital for replicating suspended animation in humans for emergency operations and and space travel
A fish that can hibernate for years without food or water could help scientists one day figure out how to put people into suspended animation to buy extra time during life saving operations.
The African lungfish can sleep out of water for three to five years without any sustenance, only to wake up when freshwater surroundings become available.
A study showing what happens on the cellular level to the fish could help scientists one day induce a similar state in humans, making long distance space travel and more advanced forms of medicine possible.
During suspended animation, genes related to detoxifying waste were 'up-regulated', stopping the build-up of harmful products in the liver.
Simultaneously, the expression of genes related to blood coagulation and iron and copper metabolism were 'down-regulated', which the researchers say could be strategies to conserve energy. The results were published in the journal Plos One.
The African lungfish is one of the closest relatives of tetrapods, the first group of four-limbed vertebrates to live outside of water.
Their anatomy offers clues as to how animals first evolved to breathe air, as they have adapted a lung that can sustain them in periods when their environment dries up.
In addition to being able to gulp air to breathe, they are able to pump oxygenated blood separately to deoxygenated blood, similar to mammals.
They pass the long stretches of the dry season holed up in burrows in the mud, and they can use their long appendages to crawl and move outside of the water.
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