On September 27th, the century-extinct Tasmanian Tiger experienced a leap in advancement towards what could be revitalization by Swedish researchers. RNA, the main sequencer for DNA, was successfully extracted from a 130-year-old specimen from the Stockholm museum. Like many other extinct animal species, the Tasmanian Tiger was brought to extinction on behalf of careless human habits. The last remnants of these lost creatures come in the form of preserved specimens, hides, fossils, or perhaps samples of DNA.
So, what was the Tasmanian Tiger, and why is such an achievement so important?
The Tasmanian Tiger, despite its name, was in fact not a tiger. As an Australian marsupial, the Tasmanian Tiger had a pouch as well as dark, broad stripes which earned it its name. Tasmanian Tigers were also known as Thylacines, which means “dog-headed pouched one” when indirectly translated from Greek through Latin.
The large carnivorous marsupial spanned the most of continental Australia at its peak. When European settlers arrived, decades of reckless hunting, habitat loss, and disease lead to a massacre of the species. Following their decline, the Tasmanian Tiger was found solely on the Tasmania, until even there did not suffice. The last recorded Tasmanian Tiger, by the name of Benjamin, would die in 1936 from apparent neglect in a shortly there after closed-down zoo.
“Scientists would need to overcome some conflicts first, like finding a similar organism to bear the offspring; which in mammals would be more difficult due to the gestation process. There’s also the possibility of problems with re-introducing a species into its old environment, acting almost like an invasive species to other species that learned to live without the deceased species,” states Mrs. Karandikar, a chemistry teacher here at Hidden Valley, about the upcoming obstacles with de-extinction.
Fast-forward to our current world, where researchers from Stockholm University managed to achieve a science-fictious dream. RNA, unlike DNA, is fickle in its extraction as it is fragile and does not age well. To isolate RNA seemed an impossible task; however, RNA is also the key to building an organism. See, DNA acts as a programming script, which, in turn, must be executed by an interpreter, like RNA.
DNA alone is not enough to bring back a species, as it only contains the basic genetic instructions needed for cells. RNA reveals what the genomes do, and therefore is essential to de-extinction. Now, as this RNA has been revealed, there shines a bright light of hope for Tasmanian Tigers, as well as many other amazing creatures which have gone extinct in the past century.
“I think getting better at analyzing the protein structure of DNA and RNA is going to be pretty critical in the future, as we are already starting to be able to change DNA. Once that really starts taking off, there’s really going to be a lot of other things we can do, like fix genetic disorders by altering DNA,” says Michael Racz (11) on how these biological advancements could impact the future.
