The 1986 Chornobyl disaster created a highly radioactive environment, yet recent research by NYU scientists reveals that nematodes in the region show no genomic damage from chronic radiation, suggesting their remarkable resilience. While some animals in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone exhibit physical and genetic differences, this study emphasizes the complexity of understanding radiation’s effects on local wildlife and raises questions about natural resistance to ionizing radiation.
To dig into this, Tintori and her colleagues turned to nematodes, tiny worms with simple genomes and rapid reproduction, which makes them particularly useful for understanding basic biological phenomena. NYU researcher Sophia Tintori measures the radiation in the Chornobyl exclusion zone, where the researchers gathered worms from organic matter including rotting fruit. Credit: Matthew RockmanIn collaboration with scientists in Ukraine and U.S.
After collecting samples in the field, the team brought them to Mousseau’s field lab in a former residential home in Chornobyl, where they separated hundreds of nematodes from the soil or fruit. From there, they headed to a Kyiv hotel where, using travel microscopes, they isolated and established cultures from each worm.
The researchers were surprised to find that, using several different analyses, they could not detect a signature of radiation damage on the genomes of the worms from Chernobyl. Wondering whether the lack of genetic signature was because the worms living in Chernobyl are unusually effective at protecting or repairing their DNA, the researchers designed a system to compare how quickly populations of worms grow and used it to measure how sensitive the descendants of each of the 20 genetically distinct worms were to different types of DNA damage.
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