Scientists from the United States have discovered a whole set of "zombie genes" that turn on in cells a few days after the death of an organism, according to an article published in the electronic library bioRxiv.org.
“For us, this experiment was a chance to satisfy our scientific curiosity and find out what happens when we die. The main conclusion of our study is that it showed that we can learn a lot about how life works by studying its death,”said Peter Noble of the University of Washington in Seattle (USA).
Noble and his colleagues found that in our body and in the body of animals there are several genes that begin to work only after the death of their owner, observing what happens in the cells of mice and zebra fish, euthanized with lethal doses of poison.
Observing the processes in the cells of several dozen dead animals, scientists noticed that the activity of genes and proteins in them did not change randomly, as might be expected if all life processes in the tissues of mice and zebra fish completely stopped after the cessation of cardiac activity. vascular system and biological brain death.
It turned out that several tens and hundreds of genes were present in the cells of mice and zebra fish, which were turned on several hours after death and whose activity remained at an extremely high level for five days after death.
Many of these genes, as scientists note, tried to "reanimate" the body, protecting cells from inflammation, enhancing the immune response and suppressing stress processes. Other "death genes," much to the surprise of biologists, as Noble put it, were the same DNA regions that are active during embryonic development and participate in body formation and are turned off after birth.
The most interesting finding was that genes associated with the development of cancer were active in the cells of dead animals. This may explain why organ transplants from recently deceased people sometimes lead to the development of malignant tumors.
These genes and their pattern of activity, which scientists called thanatotranscriptome, can be used to accurately calculate the time of death of a person and determine the suitability of organs for transplant, Noble said. In addition, observing the activity of genes in dying cells, according to the biologist, will help uncover the secrets of their interaction and how life "works".
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