Tardigrades: Trained to be hardy in the face of DNA damage

Abstract

Tardigrades withstand ionizing irradiation levels ∼500 times higher than humans can tolerate. Two recent papers shed light on how this might be achieved — via the transcriptional induction of DNA repair genes, the induction of a radioprotective DNA-binding protein, and possibly also the heightened capacity of repair proteins. © 2024 Elsevier Inc.