• The T. dohrnii has a two-part life cycle.
• it lives on the sea floor and its main job is to stay alive.
• They seem to be better at taking care of the telomeres.

Spanish scientists deciphered the genetic code of the immortal jellyfish, an organism that can continually return to a juvenile condition, in the hopes of learning more about the mechanisms of ageing in general.

In their study, which was published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Maria Pascual-Torner, Victor Quesada, and their colleagues from the University of Oviedo mapped the genetic sequence of Turritopsis dohrnii, which is the only known species of jellyfish that can turn back into a larval stage after sexual reproduction.

Like other types of jellyfish, the T. dohrnii has a two-part life cycle. During an asexual phase, it lives on the sea floor and its main job is to stay alive when there isn’t enough food. Jellyfish can have babies when the conditions are right.

Even though some jellyfish can turn back the clock and go back to being larvae, most lose this ability once they reach sexual maturity, the authors wrote. Not so for T. dohrnii.

“We’ve known for maybe 15 to 20 years that this species can use a little evolutionary trickery,” said Monty Graham, director of the Florida Institute of Oceanography and a jellyfish expert who was not involved in the research.

This is how the species got the name “immortal jellyfish,” which Graham says is a bit of a stretch.

The goal of the study was to find out what made this jellyfish different. They did this by comparing the genetic sequence of T. dohrnii to that of Turritopsis rubra, a close genetic relative that can’t get better after giving birth.

They found that T. dohrnii has changes in its genome that may help it copy and fix DNA better. They also seem to be better at taking care of the telomeres, which are the ends of chromosomes. The length of telomeres gets shorter as people and other animals age.

Graham said that the research doesn’t have any immediate value for business.

He said, “We can’t look at it like we’re going to catch these jellyfish and make a skin cream out of them.”

It has more to do with figuring out how the processes and proteins in these jellyfish keep them from dying.

“It’s one of those papers that I think will lead to an interesting new area of study.”

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