In this episode of Tiny Show and Tell Us, we explore the science behind a very catchy headline about a drug that makes mice look more youthful and increases their life expectancies. Then we shift gears to talk about a predatory unicellular organism with a swan-like neck that rapidly extends a great distance to capture prey. Researchers used origami to understand the mechanics behind this anatomical feat.
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Transcript of this Episode
Sam Jones: Welcome to Tiny Show and Tell Us, the bonus series where you write in with your favorite science story, fact, or piece of news, we read your email aloud and then dive deeper. I'm Sam Jones, the exec producer of Tiny Matters, and today I'm here with science communicator and video producer Alex Dainis, who you heard on the previous Tiny Show and Tell Us episode.
Alex Dainis: Thanks for having me back, Sam. These are very fun. I love diving into some show and tells from listeners with you. Before we get into things, a reminder that Tiny Matters is always looking for you to write in because that is what makes future episodes possible. You can email tinymatters@acs.org or click the Google form link that we put in the episode description. All right, I think you're up first this time.
Sam Jones: I am. So listener, Christina, sent a link to a story from July of this year in Futurism, written by Noor Al-Sibai titled Scientists Intrigued by Drug that Extended Lifespans of Mice while Keeping Them Young Looking. One of the scientists said, "He'll take it if it's proven safe."
Alex Dainis: Whoa.
Sam Jones: Whoa. Yeah, exactly. So we're going to talk about what these scientists did, but first I want to tell you a little bit about this drug and what it targets because that's very important to understand why they did any of these experiments.
Alex Dainis: Okay.
Sam Jones: Let's talk about it for a sec. The first thing that you need to know are about these proteins called interleukins that act as signaling molecules regulating your immune system. This is a very simplified version of what these do. Some will up-regulate, some will down-regulate, but they do play a big role in your immune system.
They were originally thought to be exclusively for communication between white blood cells, otherwise known as leukocytes, hence the name interleukins. But now we know that they're produced by a variety of cell types and it's a million times more complicated and immunology is just such a beast field of research.
Alex Dainis: I was always very intimidated by the immunologists because they A, were able to keep TD+ and TD- and all these different cell types straight in their brain somehow and figure out all of these very complex webs of biology and interactions. So yes, much respect to the immunologists out there.
Sam Jones: Absolutely. So let's talk about one interleukin in particular because this is the one that is targeted by this new drug. It's interleukin 11 And we know that interleukin 11 is involved in pathways for stimulating the production of new bone marrow and platelet cells. So very important. And it's also been shown to boost the immune system and help keep up platelet counts in cancer patients who are receiving chemotherapy. But interleukin 11 also plays a role in tissue remodeling, which includes stimulating fibrosis, which is the formation of scar tissue, and then it can also cause a lot of inflammation. So there was this hypothesis that although it plays this really important role, especially early in life, later in life, it's kind of this, and again, simplifying, but kind of this bad molecule because it triggers aging-related illnesses like cardiovascular and various metabolic diseases like diabetes.
So in 2017, researchers showed that injecting mice with interleukin 11 led the mice to develop fibrosis in their heart and kidneys, which led to organ failure and then genetically removing interleukin 11 or rather the interleukin 11 receptor, so the interleukin couldn't actually bind and do anything, protected against the disease, which was kind of shocking.
Alex Dainis: Yeah, very interesting.
Sam Jones: And so then they also injected mice with antibodies that stopped interleukin activity, which either slowed or reversed the progress of fatty liver disease, pulmonary fibrosis and kidney disease.
Alex Dainis: So interleukin 11, definitely important for some aspects in our body, but also maybe if you have too much or it's up-regulated or it's in the wrong place can also lead to all of these diseases that we don't want.
Sam Jones: Exactly. And it seems like it's really important for all this good stuff early on in development, but then later on it's playing less of a role doing anything that is not potentially harmful, at least it appears. And again, at this point we're just talking about mice and that is very important to keep in mind.
Alex Dainis: Yes.
Sam Jones: Now let's talk about the study that led to that wild headline. So in July, 2024, so just a couple of months ago, scientists created mice where the gene for the protein interleukin 11 was deleted. And then they also treated 75 week old mice, which would be about 55 years old in human years with an injection of an anti IL-11 or anti-interleukin 11 antibody, which blocks the effect of interleukin 11 in the body. And what they found was that getting rid of interleukin 11 has a significant impact on lifespan and health of the mice. So specific to the drug itself, that anti-interleukin 11 antibody, there's a lot of-
Alex Dainis: A lot of antis.
Sam Jones: A lot of antis there. But that drug saw a median lifespan extended by 22.4% in males and 25% in females. That seemed significant.
Alex Dainis: That's huge.
Sam Jones: Yes.
Alex Dainis: And that was in mice that were treated at the 75-week time point. So they weren't given anything early in life and this was they're "55 human years old" and they get this drug and their lifespan is extended by 22 to 25%.
Sam Jones: Yes.
Alex Dainis: Wow.
Sam Jones: Yeah, I know. And then they also were able to see reduced muscle wasting, improvement in muscle strength and better coat condition and decreased coat loss. Or rather, and decreased fur loss. So they were like hottie elder mice.
Alex Dainis: These are the mice you want to be in the retirement community.
Sam Jones: Exactly, exactly. Very popular in the mouse room. And also they saw very few side effects, which was like, great.
Alex Dainis: Yes.
Sam Jones: So on its surface, this sounds amazing, but again, we need to keep in mind that this is one study that's looking at aging, these aging related diseases specifically and really doing it from a, can we study the effect on aging and not just, hey, this mouse has this disease already and this is helping repair it? It's like could it be preventative? Could it actually make mice and potentially people look younger. This was a nature paper, it was a legit study, but again, it's mice. So a lot more work needs to be done to establish any safety or effectiveness in humans.
Alex Dainis: Yes.
Sam Jones: Also, it looks like in the Futurism story itself, the only people that were really quoted were directly involved in this study and so there is a bias there. Yes, this is a peer reviewed paper. However, it's always good when there are people that are really going to actively push back against this kind of research that's very exciting and seems really big. But not to stomp on anyone's dreams, but a lot of times if it seems too good to be true, it's at least a little bit too good to be true. And so a lot more needs to happen. So yeah, is this a miracle anti-aging drug? We don't know and we're not going to know for a while. So there were press releases that I saw saying that the group is working with biotech companies to do safety testing and try and think about moving it into clinical trials.
Alex Dainis: That seems very fast. That seems super fast to have.
Sam Jones: Yeah. And I don't know if there are other animal studies that they plan to do. You would think so. I think they would have to.
Alex Dainis: Yes. Yes, absolutely.
Sam Jones: Yeah. And so also there was an article in the conversation that was written about a week after the study came out by an epidemiologist saying that even though a 25% lifespan increase sounds amazing, we need to remember to not hold our breath because only around 5% of promising findings in animal models like mice carry over to humans. So genetically we're really similar to mice, but just because a lot of our genes are the same. I mean, Alex, you can obviously speak to this, but I think it's like what? 97% of our genetic information is the same as a banana's or something like that.
Alex Dainis: Yeah.
Sam Jones: But just because you have the genes does not mean you're using them the same or using them at all. And it's just saying there's genetic similarity, yes, great starting point, but that is a baseline. So this is a cool finding. I think it's undeniably cool, but whether or not it'll be relevant to us is still very unclear.
Alex Dainis: When Twitter was still an active place for scientists, one of my favorite Twitter accounts was just called In Mice.
Sam Jones: Yep, me too.
Alex Dainis: And they would quote tweet papers that came out with really exciting headlines and they'd just say in all caps, IN MICE. And I think that's what this headline needs because again, could be super cool, could be incredible. I think it's far away, but I'm not a mouse, and so I need more research before it helps me.
Sam Jones: Yeah, absolutely. I will give them credit that they do include mice in this title of the Futurism article where it says, "Scientists intrigued by drug that it extends lifespan of mice," which I'm like okay.
Alex Dainis: Okay.
Sam Jones: Good, good, good.
Alex Dainis: Yes.
Sam Jones: But yeah, totally. You see headlines all the time where it's like, "New cardiovascular drug decreases the risk of heart disease by 75%" and it's like, in one study done in mice.
Alex Dainis: Yes.
Sam Jones: Let's not add to public distrust of science and just be realistic.
Alex Dainis: Mouse studies are incredibly important. This is a huge step, but they're not the only step. But yeah, I don't want to discount most studies. I just want to add a little bit of that. I want to echo that sober note that you were adding.
Sam Jones: Yeah, I mean they're like part one or two to a ten-part process really.
Alex Dainis: Yes.
Sam Jones: But thank you so much to Christina for sending that link in. It was really interesting.
Alex Dainis: Well, great. So our next listener who wrote in is listener Ian. And I'm going to put a tiny addition here that Ian is one of my very good friends from grad school and he is one of the friends in the group chat who's always sending out cool papers. So I am very excited for this one.
Sam Jones: Thank you, Ian.
Alex Dainis: Yeah, thank you. Ian. Thank you for sending it to more than just the group chat.
So Ian wrote in, "I'm still excited by the super creative and very beautiful new discovery of how a single-celled organism, Lacrymaria olor can quickly blep out a large bit of its cell wall to use as a food-catching straw. Beautiful micrographs landed this paper on the cover of Science a bit back and the follow-up insights that were revealed by making large origami models were a great example of interdisciplinary approaches to learning about biology."
Sam Jones: Love it.
Alex Dainis: I'm so excited about this one. So we're talking about a single-celled organism called Lacrymaria olor, and I want to break down this name first because I think it helps give you a visual picture of what this thing looks like. So they get their name from Latin, and so it starts with lacryma which is tear, and olor, which is swan. And so if you were to look at a picture of this, I want you to imagine a swan with its big, long neck and a little head on it. That is really what these look like in the microscope pictures. They do have this big elongated neck, and when you look at the size of them, they extend that neck out from a teardrop-shaped cell body that's about 100 microns in size. And so compared to their size, they can extend their neck really, really far really fast. So it was described as a blep. You can imagine it sort of punching out. I think of one of those Jack-in-the-Box springs, that's just like bloop and that's its neck coming out.
Sam Jones: It is kind of like that. Yeah.
Alex Dainis: This organism is a predatory ciliate. So it's covered in tiny hair-like projections called cilia, and it's predatory, so it's eating stuff. So that neck is zooming out and grabbing stuff and they live in ponds and sometimes among things like decaying plants and other organic matter. So they're these little microscopic swan-looking things, blepping their necks out to grab their prey from their little hair-covered bodies. So they can extend their neck to both locate and capture their prey. And they can also discharge organelles called toxicysts, which have a long filament with a rod-like tip that paralyzes the prey. And there was a super hardcore line from an article about them that says, "The neck whips, bends, buckles and darts until the tip, a head-like structure that senses contact with prey, locates, strikes and triggers engulfment of its prey targets."
Sam Jones: These are very intense unicellular organisms.
Alex Dainis: Yes, it looks like a swan. It's as mean as a swan. It is out here. It is hunting its prey. There were a bunch of researchers that wanted to understand how it was doing this and how it was making this sort of shape confirmation because this is a unicellular organism that is rapidly changing its shape. So they used a combination of live imaging and other microscopy to identify a helix of pleats folded like origami that the organism uses to unspool its neck and snatch up food. So I think of this too, sort of like a little accordion. It kind of looks like a helical accordion but not quite. And so when the team was looking at this, they looked at this helical structure and they wondered if it was some sort of coil or spring and trying to figure out how it worked.
Sam Jones: Right.
Alex Dainis: And I love how they came to better understanding of it because one of the researchers went on a trip to Japan, and I am strongly in favor of the fact that if you are stuck in a problem, you got to walk away from it and experience other things.
Sam Jones: And sometimes get on a plane to the other side of the country.
Alex Dainis: Exactly, yes. And so one of the researchers saw chochin lanterns that are made of paper folded into pleats, and he said something in his brain clicked. So he and his colleague then went to an art store and bought a bunch of paper to test this idea, and they folded these sort of curved pleats in this helical shape that allowed them to better understand how this organism's neck unfolds and how that structure quickly unspools. So they really went out and they saw something in the real world, they made a connection back to this problem they were having in their lab. And then they did an art project to try and figure out how this helical neck unspools and folds out. And this is cool just from a basic biology standpoint. We love better understanding of how things in our world work, but they also said that this could serve as a blueprint for new robotics that could extend and contract in things like microsurgery.
And there is part of me that feels like they had to write that in to get the next grant because we have to talk about implications. And I do just love that we're understanding more about our world. But I do also think that it's a really cool potential example of biomimicry where we're trying to solve a problem in our world and we look to how biology solves it, and we take those ideas and we implement them in our engineering. So I think that makes this full circle that they saw this cool organism, they wanted to understand how it worked better, they took implications from art to understand that biology and now they're taking that better understanding to go out and solve problems in engineering. And that to me is such a cool connection of all these things. I love that this is a science story that stretches bigger than just this one paper and really again, shows why it's important to connect arts and sciences and culture and all the things. Nothing exists in a vacuum.
Sam Jones: No, absolutely not. I mean, I think that's something that I feel like on Tiny Matters, we talk about all the time, that science does not exist in a vacuum. Whether we're talking about social impacts, historical relevance, the arts, things are always connected. There are so many things connected to science. There are so many things that science connects to that people don't think about either. So I loved this. Again, you need so many different types of people and brains to be able to come up with stuff that's inventive.
Alex Dainis: Yes.
Sam Jones: So obviously this researcher, there's something in him that has this more artistic side or vision because I don't know. Maybe my brain does work more like that than I give it credit for, but I don't know if I'd be that person. But how cool that you have a scientist who also has this visual perception of things that feels kind of unique to me to be able to figure this out.
Alex Dainis: Yeah, absolutely. And I just went to the Fall ACS Conference and one of the keynote speakers was Temple Grandin, and her entire talk was talking about how we need different types of thinkers and visual thinkers and creative people in the sciences, that you can't just have one type of brain. You need all these brains coming together. And I think this just really drives that home.
So thank you so much, Ian. I appreciate that you shared the story more widely. This was ... It's fun, and I would encourage everyone to go and look up pictures of these organisms because they are fascinating. They're really cool looking.
Sam Jones: If you go to a link in the description to where you can find transcripts, at the bottom of the transcript of every single episode, you can find all of the references for the episode, which is great because then you can find a very cool image of this wild swan-like punching unicellular organism.
Alex Dainis: I love it. Thanks for tuning in to Tiny Show and Tell Us, a bonus episode from Tiny Matters, a production of the American Chemical Society.
Sam Jones: To be featured in a future episode, send us an email with your Tiny Show and Tell at tinymatters@acs.org. Or click the Google form link in this episode's description. See you next time.
- Scientists intrigued by drug that extended lifespans of mice while keeping them young looking
- Scientists discover switching off inflammatory protein leads to longer, healthier lifespans in mice
- Inhibition of IL-11 signalling extends mammalian healthspan and lifespan
- Hematopoietic, immunomodulatory and epithelial effects of interleukin-11
- IL-11 is a crucial determinant of cardiovascular fibrosis
- Inhibiting Interleukin 11 Signaling Reduces Hepatocyte Death and Liver Fibrosis, Inflammation, and Steatosis in Mouse Models of Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis
- A drug that can extend your life by 25%? Don’t hold your breath
- Cover image of single-cell protist Lacrymaria olor
- Ciliate Biology: The Graceful Hunt of a Shape-Shifting Predator
- Ciliate behavior: blueprints for dynamic cell biology and microscale robotics
- Curved crease origami and topological singularities enable hyperextensibility of L. olor
- This protist unfolds its ‘neck’ up to 30 times its body length to scout prey
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