The Greenland shark is an animal with the stunning ability to live for as long as 400 years. Now, an international group of scientists from Europe and the US are mapping the genome of the shark, which will help researchers better understand how the animal is able to live for so long, a report from the New York Times detailed.
According to the research, which was published as a preprint in bioRxiv, the sharks possess exceptionally large genomes with about 6.5 billion DNA “base pairs”. That is twice as many as is found in humans, making it one of the largest non-tetrapod genomes sequenced so far.
“Any research into the mechanisms of how this animal is able to live for such a long time will at some point need the genome sequence,” said Steve Hoffmann, a computational biologist in Germany who led the research.
Beyond that, the scientists also discovered the genome to be composed of repeated genes which are known as “jumping genes”. These genres are able to self replicate after inserting themselves in others, like a “genomic parasite” Hoffmann explained. This can disrupt the normal functioning of genes and cause diseases or developmental issues in an organism, the report explained.
But the researchers have hypothesized that evolution has catered to the Greenland shark, allowing it to take control of these “genomic parasites” and use them in DNA repair.
João Pedro de Magalhães, a molecular biogerontologist who was not involved in the study, said research on the shark’s extraordinary genome may help scientists “develop cancer therapies or prevention measures, or a greater fundamental understanding of cancer that will lead to clinical benefits” for people.
A separate team of researchers were stunned in 2016 when they discovered that one female Greenland shark had likely been alive for 400 years, after they set out to determine the ages of 28 of these fascinating vertebrates. The sharks are large and can grow up to 5 meters (16.5 feet) in length and reach sexual maturity at age 150.
The determination of the shark’s age was not exact, but researchers guess she could have been between 272 and 512 years old, making her likely 400 years old - which means her date of birth would belong some time to the 17th century.
The discovery of the shark’s age made it the new record-holder for the world's oldest vertebrate. However, the record for the oldest living invertebrate belongs to a 507-year-old clam named Ming, and the oldest living land animal was a Seychelles giant tortoise named Jonathan who was over 190 years old.