The popular computer game "Assassin's Creed", based on which the film was made recently, is based on the idea that the protagonist is able to "remember" and relive the memories of his long-dead ancestors. In the game and the film, a special machine - the Animus - helps the heroes to remember the distant past and pass through generations.
While such excursions into the past are nothing more than science fiction today, the idea of genetic memories embedded in our DNA is not so far from the truth.
Transfer of ancestral experience
In fact, groundbreaking new research, published in the journal Science, suggests that experiences that influenced the lives of ancestors may have an impact on the lives of descendants. This link can remain in genes for 14 generations.
A team of scientists from the Center for Genomic Regulation of Barcelona and the José Carreras Leukemia Research Institute conducted a study on the genes of hookworm worms. They concluded that genes are capable of carrying information that potentially reflects the life experiences of distant ancestors.
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This discovery recorded a unique phenomenon - the longest-lasting form of transmission of genetic information ever found in an animal.
What does it mean?
It is still extremely difficult to carry out such observations with people, since the life expectancy of people is much higher, and the genetic structure is more complex, but the differences in the organization of the genetic material of people and nematode worms are not too radical.
We know that the way our grandparents lived their lives really influences our habits, but now it's possible that an ancestor who lived centuries ago can still directly influence how we behave today.
Genetics and genetic memory
Let's digress a little bit about what genetics does and how we get our DNA from our parents. This is a very specific and relatively new area of biology.
Our genes are inherited from our parents, and their genes are inherited from their parents. If they change or mutate, we inherit these mutations.
However, genome changes depend not only on what has been inherited, but also on the environment and life experience. For example, a lifetime in hot climates will prepare our bodies to better cope with high temperatures and bright sunshine, and we can pass this information on to descendants through changes in the genome.
Changes in the environment and life experience, such as air and water pollution, wars, stress and psychological deviations, greatly affect the information carried by genes.
An additional layer of information obtained from the experience of parents is, as it were, superimposed on top of the DNA chain. Its structure as such does not change, but its "clothing" does.
This transfer of genetic information obtained from the environment and the life experience of ancestors has already been seen in humans. For example, the descendants of Holocaust survivors have significantly reduced blood levels of cortisol (a stress hormone), which means they are more susceptible to the negative effects of stress, pressure, tension, anxiety and fear.
Research carried out
This particular study focused on Caenorhabditis elegans, tiny nematodes with a very short lifespan. The researchers genetically engineered them by adding a fluorescent protein to their genes that they could track under ultraviolet light.
Scientists placed the worms first in a cold environment, where the gene glowed faintly. By moving the nematodes to a warmer environment, scientists saw that the gene glows much more strongly. Returning the studied animals to the cold room, the observers noticed that the gene continues to glow more strongly, as if preserving the "memory" of the warm environment.
Subsequently, not only the fluorescent gene, but also the memory of the warm habitat was passed on to subsequent generations. This means that the descendants of the first nematodes with a fluorescent gene "knew" about the warm environment, without ever experiencing it for themselves.
conclusions
Scientists suggest that this form of long-term transfer of genetic experience to offspring is a kind of biological planning for the future. Worms are very short-lived, so ancestors are likely to pass on memories of the conditions they experienced to help their descendants prepare for what their habitat might look like in the future.
So, if worms can "remember" the experiences of their long-gone ancestors, is it possible for humans to do the same? At the moment it is impossible to get a definite answer to this question, but the probability exists.
Hope Chikanchi