Nematodes of three genera (Acrobeloides sp., Aphelenchus avenae, and Scutellonema brachyurum) were induced to coil and enter anhydrobiosis in drying soil of two types: sandy loam and loamy sand. Coiling was studied in relationship to soil moisture characteristics. Coiling and the physiological state of anhydrobiosis occurred before the water in sandy soils reached a water potential of -15 bars....

The disaccharide trehalose is a major determinant of desiccation tolerance via unresolved mechanisms. A new study highlights a critical role for this chemical chaperone in energy-independent maintenance of protein homeostasis during extended periods of dehydration and relative metabolic inactivity.

Abstract Anhydrobiosis can be described as an adaptation to lack of water that enables some organisms, including tardigrades, survive extreme conditions, even do not exist on Earth. The cellular mechanisms underlying anhydrobiosis are still completely explained the putative contribution mitochondrial proteins. Since alternative oxidase (AOX), a drought response element in plants, was recently p...

Anhydrobiosis, or extreme desiccation tolerance, is one of the strategies that allows terrestrial Antarctic organisms to survive in a harsh environment. A new study in BMC Genomics analyses gene expression in an Antarctic nematode during desiccation, and sheds new light on this phenomenon.

BACKGROUND Many tardigrade species are capable of anhydrobiosis; however, mechanisms underlying their extreme desiccation resistance remain elusive. This study attempts to quantify the anhydrobiotic transcriptome of the limno-terrestrial tardigrade Milnesium tardigradum. RESULTS A prerequisite for differential gene expression analysis was the generation of a reference hybrid transcriptome atl...