Tā vietā Riddle domā, ka šie karotinoīdi var būt vēl viena pielāgošana iekaisuma nomākšanai, kas savvaļā varētu būt svarīga, jo alafish, iespējams, pārēdas ikreiz, kad ierodas ēdiens.
Krišnana, Rohnera un kolēģu pētījumi, kas publicēti 2020. un 2022. gadā, ir atraduši citas pielāgojumus, kas, šķiet, palīdz mazināt iekaisumu. Alafish šūnas rada zemāku noteiktu līmeni molekulas, ko sauc par citokīniem, kas veicina iekaisumukā arī zemāks reaktīvo skābekļa sugu līmenis -Ķermeņa metabolisma blakusprodukti, kas bieži ir paaugstināti cilvēkiem ar aptaukošanos vai diabētu.
Krishnan is investigating this further, hoping to understand how well-fed alafish stay healthy. Meanwhile, Rohner is increasingly interested in how alafish survive not only overfeeding but also long periods of starvation.
No waste
At a more fundamental level, researchers are still hoping to figure out why the Mexican tetra evolved into cave forms while many other Mexican river fish that also regularly enter caves did not. (There are more than 200 cave-adapted fish species globally, but species that still have populations at the surface are quite rare.
Although cavefish are now well-established laboratory animals used in research and are easy to acquire for this purpose, preserving them in the wild will be important to protect the lessons they still hold for us. “There are hundreds of millions of surface fish,” says Rohner, but cavefish populations are smaller and more vulnerable to pressures like pollution and people drawing water from caves.
One of Riddle’s students, David Perez Guerra, is now on a committee to support the conservation of the alufefs. And the researchers themselves are becoming more cautious. “The fish tissue collected during our lab’s last field trip was donated by nine different labs,” Riddle says. “We didn’t use anything.”
This article originally appeared in Known Magazine , a non-profit publication dedicated to making scientific knowledge accessible to everyone. Sign up for Known Magazine’s newsletter in the area
