Squid, Octopus Genomes Alter Themselves, Blocking Evolution | The Institute for Creation Research
Squid, Octopus Genomes Alter Themselves, Blocking Evolution

A team of researchers from Israel and the U.S. are searching for animals that can edit their own RNA molecules. They encountered a standout. Unlike other animals that edit only a small fraction of the RNA that spells out protein sequences, squid cells edit their RNA by the bushel. The team described their results in 2015. Since then, they have dived deeper to look for more answers. Along the way, they stumbled over a difficult question that challenges the evolutionary paradigm.1
 
Cephalopods include the squid, octopus, cuttlefish, nautilus, and snail categories. The researchers examined representatives from each one to reveal that the squid, octopus and a cuttlefish make extensive internal RNA edits, while the nautiluses and snails they examined do not. Squid, cuttlefish, and octopi flash arrays of bioluminescent colors across their skin—unlike snails and nautiloids. Unique nerve networks coordinate these fantastic kaleidoscopes.

Squid, cuttlefish, octopi flash arrays of bioluminescent colors across their skin—unlike snails and nautiloids. Tweet: Squid, cuttlefish, octopi flash arrays of bioluminescent colors across their skin—unlike snails and nautiloids.

Squid, Octopus Genomes Alter Themselves, Blocking Evolution: http://www.icr.org/article/squid-octopus-genomes-alter-themselves

@icrscience @icrbthomas

#Science #DNA

In RNA editing, a DNA sequence gets copied and transferred into a length of RNA. Then, a unique enzyme clamps onto the specially designed RNA structures. Once attached, it can swap out certain chemicals within the RNA structure to alter the RNA’s coded message. The processed RNA produces a protein unlike what would have emerged if the RNA had remained unaltered.
 
The team, publishing this time in the journal Cell, confirmed that the enzyme in these high-paced RNA-editing cephalopods replaces adenine with inosine. The team found RNA edits going on inside nerve cells. They deduced between “80 and 130 thousand editing sites in protein-coding regions.”2 They wrote, “This process has the capacity to recode codons and fine-tune protein function.”2
 
The study authors noted how the enzyme works. It binds to a certain three-dimensional RNA structure like a can opener latching onto the top lip of a can of green beans. And just like a can opener cannot open a bag of chips this way, but only cans with the same-sized edges, the enzyme only works on specifically-shaped RNA.
 
Working backward, this means that the DNA that specifies the editable RNA must maintain a very similar sequence over countless generations. Even a small change—a mutation—would make the lip of that can either too large or too small, or could ruin the necessary can opener shape. In like manner, if a cell wants that editable RNA, it will need just the right shape for the can opener enzyme to latch on and do its thing. In cells, DNA maintains that shape by keeping the same sequence of chemicals—the four familiar bases—in just the right order.
 
Put another way, this study revealed “an unanticipated genome rigidity required to maintain the extensive transcriptome recoding [RNA editing].” Why didn’t they anticipate this? Why did they call this rigidity “most surprising?”2 Probably because they know that rigid genomes cannot evolve. Evolution requires the opposite—flexible genomes. DNA that cannot change without compromising RNA recoding cannot evolve.
 
The study authors concluded that these genetically unique creatures have traded traditional DNA evolution for the ability to fine-tune their own proteins through RNA editing.3 But does this address the Architeuthis in the room?

DNA that cannot change without compromising RNA recoding cannot evolve. Tweet: DNA that cannot change without compromising RNA recoding cannot evolve.

Squid, Octopus Genomes Alter Themselves, Blocking Evolution: http://www.icr.org/article/squid-octopus-genomes-alter-themselves

@icrscience @icrbthomas

#Science #DNA

If the DNA is too rigid to evolve, then…how did it evolve? In other words, how could it originate by evolution if evolution by DNA mutation is off the table? In light of the ultra high-tech ability of these animals to optimize their own vital genetic material using precise RNA re-coding molecular machines and procedures, these researchers should wonder if it evolved at all.
 
References
1. Alon, S. et al. 2015. The majority of transcripts in the squid nervous system are extensively recoded by A-to-I RNA editing. eLife. 4: e05198. DOI: 10.7554/elife.05198.
2. Liscovitch-Brauer, N. et al. 2018. Trade-off between Transcriptome Plasticity and Genome Evolution in Cephalopods. Cell. 169 (2): 191-202.
3. The Liscovitch-Brauer team wrote, “Thus, although extensive recoding presents the species with a route toward proteome complexity, it comes with its own price tag. The constraints required to preserve thousands of recoding sites reduce the accumulation of mutations at positions in the proximity of an editing site, slowing down the rate of conventional, DNA-level evolution.”
 
*Brian Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

The Latest
CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Beauty for Beauty's Sake! | Creation.Live Podcast: Episode 17
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right? Or is beauty an objective standard? Where do our ideas of beauty even come from?   Hosts...

NEWS
Fire Sensory Capabilities of the Venus Flytrap
Fascinating discoveries have been made regarding the amazing Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula).1 For example, all parts of this amazing plant...

CREATION PODCAST
What Really Swallowed Jonah? | The Creation Podcast: Episode...
The book of Jonah contains the historical account of the prophet Jonah. In verse 17 of chapter 1, the text states that the Lord prepared a great...

NEWS
More Flood Evidence
Paleontologists recently discovered the partial fossils of two new species of dinosaur just outside of Casablanca. As stated in a Science Direct article,...

NEWS
New York Times Editorial: Big Bang Unraveling?
Two physicists have suggested in a recent New York Times guest editorial that Big Bang cosmology ‘may be starting to unravel.’1...

NEWS
Your Functional ''Yolk Sac''
For decades, evolutionists pointed to dozens of ‘useless artifacts’ of the human body to make their questionable case for evolution. But...

NEWS
The Beauty of Creation: Created for God’s Own Glory
Have you ever wondered why a sunset on a beach is captivating, snowcapped mountains are breathtaking, and a valley filled with wildflowers is enchanting? Scripture,...

CREATION PODCAST
Devastating, Dangerous, and Deadly Bacteria? | The Creation Podcast:...
Bacteria are everywhere! While we can't see them with the naked eye, these little critters are everywhere, even in and on your body! Some of...

NEWS
Pre-Flood Reptile Fossil Discovered With Baleen
Baleen whales (suborder Mysticeti) are amazing filter-feeding mammals of the sea. They belong to a group called the Cetacea. Evolutionists suggest they...

NEWS
September 2023 ICR Wallpaper
"If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, then I will give you rain in its season, the land shall yield its produce, and...