Membraneless and membrane-bound organelles in an anhydrobiotic cell line are protected from desiccation-induced damage

Clinton J Belott; Oleg A Gusev; Takahiro Kikawada; Michael A Menze

doi:10.1016/j.cstres.2024.04.002

Membraneless and membrane-bound organelles in an anhydrobiotic cell line are protected from desiccation-induced damage

Cell Stress Chaperones. 2024 Apr 10;29(3):425-436. doi: 10.1016/j.cstres.2024.04.002. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Clinton J Belott¹, Oleg A Gusev², Takahiro Kikawada³, Michael A Menze⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biology, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA; Division of Biotechnology, Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. Electronic address: berottok044@affrc.go.jp.
² Extreme Biology Laboratory, Institute of Fundamental Medicine and Biology, Kazan Federal University, Kazan, Tatarstan, Russia; Molecular Biomimetics Group, Life Improvement by Future Technologies (LIFT) Center, Moscow, Russia; Intractable Disease Research Center, Graduate School of Medicine, Juntendo University, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan. Electronic address: o.gusev.fo@juntendo.ac.jp.
³ Division of Biotechnology, Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. Electronic address: kikawada@affrc.go.jp.
⁴ Department of Biology, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA.

Abstract

Anhydrobiotic species can survive virtually complete water loss by entering a reversible ametabolic glassy state that may persist for years in ambient conditions. The Pv11 cell line was derived from the egg mass of the anhydrobiotic midge, Polypedilum vanderplanki, and is currently the only available anhydrobiotic cell line. Our results demonstrate that the necessary preconditioning for Pv11 cells to enter anhydrobiosis causes autophagy and reduces mitochondrial respiration by over 70%. We speculate that reorganizing cellular bioenergetics to create and conserve energy stores may be valuable to successfully recover after rehydration. Furthermore, mitochondria in preconditioned cells lose their membrane potential during desiccation but rapidly restore it within 30 min upon rehydration, demonstrating that the inner mitochondrial membrane integrity is well-preserved. Strikingly, the nucleolus remains visible immediately upon rehydration in preconditioned cells while absent in control cells. In contrast, a preconditioning-induced membraneless organelle reformed after rehydration, demonstrating that membraneless organelles in Pv11 cells can be either stabilized or recovered. Staining the endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi apparatus revealed that these organelles fragment during preconditioning. We hypothesize that this process reduces sheering stress caused by rapid changes in cellular volume during desiccation and rehydration. Additionally, preconditioning was found to cause the filamentous-actin (F-actin) network to disassemble significantly and reduce the fusion of adjacent plasma membranes. This study offers several exciting avenues for future studies in the animal model and Pv11 cell line that will further our understanding of anhydrobiosis and may lead to advancements in storing sensitive biologics at ambient temperatures for months or years.

Keywords: Anhydrobiosis; Anhydrobiosis-related intrinsically disordered proteins; Desiccation tolerance; Late embryogenesis abundant proteins; Membraneless organelles; Polypedilum vanderplanki.