Vitrification is essential for anhydrobiosis in an
African chironomid, Polypedilum vanderplanki
Minoru Sakurai*, Takao Furuki*, Ken-ichi Akao†, Daisuke Tanaka‡, Yuichi Nakahara‡, Takahiro Kikawada‡,
Masahiko Watanabe‡, and Takashi Okuda‡§
*Center for Biological Resources and Informatics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, B-62 Nagatsuta-cho, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8501, Japan; †Spectroscopic
Instruments Division, JASCO Corporation, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-8537, Japan; and ‡Anhydrobiosis Research Unit, National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences,
Ohwashi 1-2, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8634, Japan
Edited by David L. Denlinger, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, and approved February 1, 2008 (received for review July 2, 2007)
trehalose 兩 water replacement 兩 Fourier-transform infrared
microspectroscopy 兩 biological glass 兩 cryptobiosis
S
ome organisms can survive adverse environments such as
drought and low temperature through various physiological and
biochemical adaptations. An ultimate strategy for the survival of
drought is anhydrobiosis, in which an organism loses virtually all of
its free intracellular water and ceases metabolism but remains
capable of revival after rehydration (1). Anhydrobiosis has been
found in various unicellular organisms, invertebrates, and plants
(2–9). Based on studies on plant seeds and in vitro experiments, two
mutually compatible hypotheses have been proposed. The vitrification hypothesis proposes that mixtures of accumulated nonreducing sugars and highly hydrophilic proteins enter a glassy state
during dehydration and thereby immobilize membranes and macromolecules in the cytoplasm, protecting them from denaturation,
coagulation, and disintegration (10–13). The water-replacement
hypothesis holds that the hydrophilic molecules afford a similar
protection by directly interacting with macromolecules, mainly
through hydrogen bonds, and thus take the place of water (14–17).
However, no physiological or physicochemical evidence for either
hypothesis has been reported in whole anhydrobiotic animals.
The larva of the sleeping chironomid, Polypedilum vanderplanki,
is the largest multicellular animal capable of anhydrobiosis (18, 19).
The larvae dwell in temporary rock pools in semiarid regions in
Africa (18). When these small, shallow pools dry up, the larvae
desiccate. When rain refills the pools, the larvae rehydrate and
revive. According to one report, larvae of P. vanderplanki can
www.pnas.org兾cgi兾doi兾10.1073兾pnas.0706197105
recover from desiccation of up to 17 years (20). Recently, we have
succeeded in inducing P. vanderplanki larvae to enter anhydrobiosis
under laboratory conditions and found that larvae synthesize and
accumulate high levels of trehalose, ⬇20% of the dry body mass, as
they dehydrate (21, 22). Concurrently, late embryonic abundant
(LEA) proteins increase in quantity (23). Trehalose and a highly
hydrophilic LEA protein are found in many anhydrobiotic microbes
and animals (1–8, 24–27) and are assumed to be involved in
desiccation tolerance. Combination of these factors may contribute
to the building of stable intracellular glasses (28–31).
In the present study, we assessed both vitrification and waterreplacement hypotheses in P. vanderplanki. Results from Fouriertransform infrared (FTIR) analysis and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) demonstrated glasses in the anhydrobiotic larvae
and strongly suggested that cell membranes were protected by
replacement of water by sugars. When desiccated larvae were made
to change from the glassy to the rubbery state through either heat
or humid treatments, their ability to recover upon rehydration was
greatly decreased, indicating that vitrification is required for successful anhydrobiosis of the sleeping chironomid.
Results
Glass Transition in the Anhydrobiotic Larva. To see whether biolog-
ical glasses are formed in dehydrated P. vanderplanki, we obtained
two kinds of samples with very different desiccation tolerance.
Larvae with an ability to recover from almost complete desiccation
were obtained by slow dehydration over a period of 72 h (21, 22),
while those without such ability were obtained by fast dehydration
within several hours. We will refer to these two types of larvae as
‘‘slow or slowly’’ and ‘‘quick or quickly’’ dehydrated for the sake of
brevity. The most conspicuous difference between the two samples
was trehalose content, which was 14-fold larger in the slow sample
than the quick sample (Fig. 1). No difference was found in the
contents of total protein, triacylglycerol, or water in the two types
of larvae (Fig. 1), although their protein profiles and probably also
their lipid profiles differed (M. Fujita, T.K., and T.O., unpublished
data).
Heat absorption of the slowly and quickly dehydrated larvae was
analyzed by DSC (Fig. 2A). In quickly dehydrated larvae, no
baseline shift or peak in absorption was observed as larvae were
heated. In contrast, slowly dehydrated larvae exhibited a clear
baseline shift in a stepwise manner, indicating a glass transition. The
onset, middle, and end glass transition temperatures (Tg) were
Author contributions: M.S. and T.F. contributed equally to this work; M.S., T.F., and T.O.
designed research; T.F., K.-i.A., D.T., Y.N., T.K., and M.W. performed research; M.S., T.F., and
K.-i.A. analyzed data; and M.S., T.F., Y.N., and T.O. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
§To
whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: oku@affrc.go.jp.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/
0706197105/DCSupplemental.
© 2008 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA
PNAS 兩 April 1, 2008 兩 vol. 105 兩 no. 13 兩 5093–5098
BIOPHYSICS
Anhydrobiosis is an extremely dehydrated state in which organisms show no detectable metabolism but retain the ability to revive
after rehydration. Thus far, two hypotheses have been proposed to
explain how cells are protected during dehydration: (i) water
replacement by compatible solutes and (ii) vitrification. The
present study provides direct physiological and physicochemical
evidence for these hypotheses in an African chironomid, Polypedilum vanderplanki, which is the largest multicellular animal capable
of anhydrobiosis. Differential scanning calorimetry measurements
and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) analyses indicated that the
anhydrobiotic larvae were in a glassy state up to as high as 65°C.
Changing from the glassy to the rubbery state by either heating or
allowing slight moisture uptake greatly decreased the survival rate
of dehydrated larvae. In addition, FTIR spectra showed that sugars
formed hydrogen bonds with phospholipids and that membranes
remained in the liquid-crystalline state in the anhydrobiotic larvae.
These results indicate that larvae of P. vanderplanki survive extreme dehydration by replacing the normal intracellular medium
with a biological glass. When entering anhydrobiosis, P. vanderplanki accumulated nonreducing disaccharide trehalose that was
uniformly distributed throughout the dehydrated body by FTIR
microscopic mapping image. Therefore, we assume that trehalose
plays important roles in water replacement and intracellular glass
formation, although other compounds are surely involved in these
phenomena.
A
Slow
Quick
40
35
30
1.0
Absorbance
Contents (µg/individual)
45
25
20
15
10
5
0
Protein
TG
4000
Water
Fig. 1. Contents of trehalose, protein, triacylglyceride, and water in quickly
and slowly dehydrated larvae of P. vanderplanki.
62°C, 65°C, and 71°C, respectively, meaning that larval cytoplasm
was in a glassy state at ⬍62°C and in a rubbery state at ⬎71°C.
The glass transition phenomena were also assessed by FTIR
analysis. FTIR spectra of the slow and quick samples showed
obvious differences at 992 cm⫺1 and a region from 3,800 to 3,000
cm⫺1 (Fig. 3A). Because the slow sample contained a large amount
of trehalose, which is a nonreducing disaccharide consisting of two
D-glucose molecules joined by an ␣,␣-1,1 linkage, a stretching
vibration band of the linkage was observed at ⬇992 cm⫺1 (red
arrow). This band becomes clear when trehalose exists in a glassy
state (32), and spectra thus indicated that trehalose was vitrified in
the slowly dehydrated larvae.
In addition, in the high wavenumber region (3,800–3,000 cm⫺1),
where mainly the O-H and N-H stretching vibration bands appear
A
Quick
20
40
60
80
Temperature / °C
100
120
20
40
60
80
Temperature / °C
100
120
100
Recovery rate, %
B
Heat flow
0.1 W g-1
Slow
80
60
40
20
0
Fig. 2. Glass in anhydrobiotic larvae and their recovery after heat treatments. (A) DSC thermograms for slowly and quickly dehydrated larvae. A
baseline shift of ⬇60 –70°C in the slowly dehydrated sample indicates the
phase transition. (B) Dependence of the recovery rate after rehydration on
exposure to high temperatures in slowly (filled symbols) and quickly (open
symbols) dehydrated larvae. Circles and triangles show recovery after exposure to high temperature for 5 min and 1 h, respectively.
5094 兩 www.pnas.org兾cgi兾doi兾10.1073兾pnas.0706197105
B
3000
2000
Wavenumber / cm-1
1000
3305
Wavenumber / cm-1
Trehalose
Quick
3300
3295
Slow
3290
Tg
3285
3280
-20
0
20
40
60
80
100
Temperature / °C
Fig. 3.
FTIR analysis of desiccated P. vanderplanki. (A) FTIR spectra of
anhydrous glassy trehalose (bottom), a slowly dehydrated larva (middle), and
a quickly dehydrated larva (top). Red and blue arrows indicate the characteristic 992- and 1,540-cm⫺1 peaks of trehalose and the amide II band of total
protein, respectively. A green line indicates a region (3,800 –3,000 cm⫺1) of
O–H and N–H stretching vibration bands. (B) Temperature dependence of the
maximal peak position in the region 3,800 –3,000 cm⫺1. An inflection point
(Tg) was observed in the spectrum of the slowly dehydrated larva.
(33–35), a clear inflection point near 65°C was observed in the
spectrum of the slowly dehydrated larvae but not the quickly
dehydrated larvae when the maximal peak position in this region
was plotted against temperature (Fig. 3B). These temperaturedependent behaviors of the IR band were consistent with the results
from DSC analysis.
Although the above analysis is accepted as a method for determining the glass transition temperatures of sugars and intact cells
(33–35), it does not necessarily indicate the exact compounds
responsible for the phase transition. For this, we conducted a
principal-component analysis (36). The IR band of the slowly (Fig.
4A) and quickly (Fig. 4B) dehydrated larvae could be decomposed
into two major components (P1 and P2 for the former and P1⬘ and
P2⬘ for the latter). When the value of each principal component was
given as a function of temperature, P1 showed a peak at 65°C, which
was close to the glass transition temperature, whereas P2 and P2⬘
had no clear peak or inflection point (Fig. 4 C and D). The P1 peak
position is close to that of the characteristic shoulder observed in
the FTIR spectrum of the slowly dehydrated larvae (Fig. 3A,
middle) and also assumed to be composed of a rather uniform
molecule in large quantity in the slowly dehydrated larvae. Among
the likely candidates for such a compound are trehalose and
desiccation-inducible proteins such as LEA proteins, which are
strongly associated with anhydrobiosis (21–23).
Trehalose Distribution in Desiccated Larvae. The slowly dehydrated
larvae have concentrations of trehalose of up to 18% of their dry
body weight and are able to revive upon rehydration, suggesting that
a high content of trehalose contributes to successful induction of
their anhydrobiosis (21). To visualize their internal distribution of
Sakurai et al.
A 0.15
C 0.15
P1
P2
0.10
P1
P2
0.05
0.05
Arbitrary unit
0.00
-0.05
-0.10
-0.10
-0.15
-0.20
Slow
-0.15
Slow
-0.25
3800
3600
3400
3200
Wavenumber / cm-1
3000
B
20
40
60
80
Temperature / °C
100
120
D 0.30
0.15
0.25
0.10
0.20
P1’
P2’
0.05
Arbitrary unit
Arbitrary unit
0.00
-0.05
0.00
-0.05
0.15
P2’
0.10
0.05
0.00
-0.05
-0.10
Quick
-0.15
-0.10
Quick
-0.15
3800
3600
3400
3200
Wavenumber / cm-1
3000
20
40
trehalose, we measured FTIR microscopic mapping images using
the peak at 992 cm⫺1 of an ␣,␣-1,1 linkage as an indicator for
trehalose; no other biological disaccharide has this linkage. The
images showed that large amounts of trehalose were distributed
widely within a slowly dehydrated larva and that little trehalose was
present in a quickly dehydrated one (Fig. 5). The raw images
showed especially high amounts of trehalose in the central regions
of the slowly dehydrated larva. To test whether this was an artifact
of greater thickness in the central regions, we normalized the peak
intensity at 992 cm⫺1 with the peak of amide II at 1,540 cm⫺1,
representing total proteins, which are uniformly distributed in the
larva. The normalized trehalose distribution clearly showed that
trehalose was almost uniformly distributed through the larval body
(Fig. 5), at least at this level of resolution.
Trehalose
(992 cm-1)
Protein
(1540 cm-1)
Normalized
Trehalose
Slow
Optical
Quick
500 µm
Fig. 5. Optical and FTIR imaging data for a slowly dehydrated larva and a
quickly dehydrated larva. Mapped were intensities of the characteristic 992cm⫺1 peak corresponding to trehalose and 1,540-cm⫺1 peak corresponding to
the amide II of proteins. Unequal apparent trehalose distribution due to
variation in thickness of the larvae was normalized by dividing the intensity of
the peak at 992 cm⫺1 by that of the amide II band. Spatial resolution is 12.5 ⫻
12.5 m. Warm colors indicate higher intensity—i.e., larger amounts of the
molecule. (Scale bar: 500 m.)
Sakurai et al.
60
80
Temperature / °C
100
120
Fig. 4. Principal-component analysis of
dehydrated P. vanderplanki. (A and B) FTIR
spectra were decomposed into two components: P1 and P2 in slowly dehydrated larvae (A) and P1⬘ and P2⬘ in quickly dehydrated larvae (B). Shown is a region
between 3,800 and 3,000 cm⫺1 (Fig. 3A).
P1⬘ is likely to be a noise. (C and D) Temperature-dependent change of the score
value for each principal component.
Vitrification Is Essential for Anhydrobiosis. To evaluate the effect of
biological glasses in dehydrated P. vanderplanki, we then examined
whether the slowly dehydrated larvae can tolerate high temperatures at which glasses in the body convert to rubbers. Measured 48 h
after rehydration, recovery from exposure to temperatures of up to
60°C while dehydrated was ⬎80% after exposure for 5 min and
⬎60% after exposure for 1 h (Fig. 2B). Recovery dropped sharply
after exposures to temperatures ⬎80°C. Because the larval cytoplasm was probably in a glassy state at 60°C and below, and in a
rubbery one at 80°C and above (Fig. 2 A), these results were
consistent with promotion of recovery from dehydration by retention of the glassy state.
To test this further, we investigated the effect of humidity on
anhydrobiosis because water is a good plasticizer of sugar glass (37).
When slowly dehydrated larvae were exposed to 38% or 60%
relative humidity (RH) for either 5 or 15 days, their water content
slightly increased, and trehalose contents remained almost the same
as the control at 5% RH (Table 1). The glass transition was still
observed after such minor uptake of moisture, although the glass
transition temperature ranges were much lower than in larvae kept
at 5% RH [Table 1 and supporting information (SI) Fig. S1]. The
slowly dehydrated larvae remained in a glassy state because the
midpoint transition temperature was higher than the ambient
temperature, and recovery was still high (Table 1). In contrast,
when larvae were exposed to 93% RH or 98% RH, considerable
uptake of moisture was followed by loss of the glassy state (Figs. S1
and S2) and large decreases in recovery rate (Table 1).
Involvement of the Water-Replacement Mechanism. Generally, in
vivo IR spectra include significant information on ultramicroscopic
states of biological tissues, which helps us to get deep insight into
the mechanism of successful anhydrobiosis. To seek evidence for
the water-replacement hypothesis in dehydrated P. vanderplanki, we
examined the IR spectral regions between 1,280 and 1,200 cm⫺1,
where the main spectral contribution comes from the asymmetric
stretching vibration of the PAO atomic groups and has been often
used to investigate the interactions between the headgroup of
phospholipids and sugars for both biological and biomimetic memPNAS 兩 April 1, 2008 兩 vol. 105 兩 no. 13 兩 5095
BIOPHYSICS
Arbitrary unit
0.10
Table 1. Effects of humidity on the water and trehalose contents, recovery rate, and physicochemical properties
of slowly dehydrated larvae
Condition
Slow
Quick
5-day treatment
38% RH
60% RH
93% RH
98% RH
15-day treatment†
38% RH
60% RH
Water %
by mass
Trehalose, g/mg
(larval dry weight)
Recovery
rate,* %
Tg (onset),
°C
Tg (midpoint),
°C
Tg (end),
°C
3
3
276.7
4.2
91
0
62
nd
65
nd
71
nd
7
10
31
36
244.2
246.2
246.3
285.1
90
93
50
0
24
19
nd
nd
35
32
nd
nd
45
43
nd
nd
7
11
248.7
286.0
90
78
23
14
31
28
42
43
nd, not detected.
*Survival was examined 48 h after rehydration.
†Samples incubated for 15 days at 93% RH and 98% RH were spoiled.
branes (38–42). The peak position of this region, [PAO] cm⫺1,
was slightly lower in slowly than in quickly dehydrated larvae (Fig.
6A). This suggests that hydrogen bonds formed between the polar
headgroups of phospholipids and sugars (40–42), although compounds other than phospholipids, such as DNA and RNA, also
contain the PAO atomic group and could also cause differences in
the peak position of the region.
To further test whether the effect was caused by phospholipids,
we focused on the IR spectral regions between 2,856 and 2,849
cm⫺1, where the absorption band appears due to the symmetric
CH2 stretching vibration. This region has been widely used to
determine the gel-to-liquid crystalline temperature (Tm) in both
biomimetic and cellular membranes (40–46). Tm is usually defined
as the midpoint of the temperature range in which the peak
position, [CH2-sym], shifts from 2,850 to 2,854 cm⫺1 in a temperature-dependent manner (40–46). As shown in Fig. 6B, the transition curve of the slowly dehydrated larvae was shifted to lower
temperatures than that of the quickly dehydrated larvae. This result
suggests that the gel-to-liquid crystalline temperature of the former
was lowered by forming hydrogen bonds between the polar headgroups of phospholipids and sugars (40–42). Taken together, these
results indicate that water replacement and vitrification are both
involved in anhydrobiosis in P. vanderplanki.
Discussion
P. vanderplanki is useful for biophysical and physiological analysis
because of its relatively large body size; other anhydrobiotic animals
are microscopic or nearly so (47). Taking advantage of this fact, we
demonstrated that in the dehydrated larvae that had entered
anhydrobiosis, biomembranes were protected by hydrogen-bonding
with sugars and biological glasses were formed. Because a large
amount of trehalose is distributed throughout the body of the
anhydrobiotic larva, in which neither other sugars nor polyols were
detected (21), we assume that trehalose plays an important role in
anhydrobiosis in P. vanderplanki.
Although trehalose may be one of the key components of the
intracellular glass formation in the slowly desiccated larvae of P.
vanderplanki, its physical state could be influenced by other components. If anhydrous glassy trehalose without additives is exposed
to relative humidity of ⬎44%, it converts to dihydrate and crystallizes (48). However, x-ray diffraction measurements detected no
crystal formation in the slowly dried larvae even after exposure to
higher relative humidity (T.F. and M.S., unpublished data), indicating that the crystallization of endogenous glassy trehalose was
hindered by the presence of cytoplasmic solutes such as proteins (49).
The glass transition temperatures of the slowly dehydrated larvae
of P. vanderplanki, Tg[slow], shifted less with an increase in water
5096 兩 www.pnas.org兾cgi兾doi兾10.1073兾pnas.0706197105
content than expected from theoretical values that can be estimated
as Tg of a binary mixture of pure trehalose in water using the
Gordon–Taylor equation (50), Tg ⫽ (w1Tg1 ⫹ kw2Tg2)/(w1 ⫹ kw2),
where Tg1 and Tg2 represent the glass transition temperatures of
pure sugar and water, respectively, and w1 and w2 are their weight
fractions with w1 ⫹ w2 ⫽ 1. The onset values of Tg1 and Tg2 are
taken to be 113.9°C (51) and ⫺135°C (52) for trehalose and water,
respectively, and k to be 7.5 (51).¶ As shown in Table 1, the onset
value of Tg[slow] decreased from 62°C to 14°C as body water
content increased from 3% to 11%, whereas the corresponding
theoretical Tg value decreases more steeply, from 67°C to ⫺6°C.
This may imply the involvement of some factors other than trehalose when the vitreous state was formed in the body of P. vanderplanki. For plant anhydrobiotes, the possibility has been reported
that proteins as well as soluble carbohydrates are vitrified in the
cytoplasmic glass (29, 30). We obtained no evidence that proteins
undergo vitrification when the larvae of P. vanderplanki enter
anhydrobiosis. However, our results do not exclude the possibility
that highly hydrophilic LEA proteins may also be responsible for
intracellular glasses in P. vanderplanki (23). LEA proteins occur in
various anhydrobiotic organisms (1, 24–27) and have been suggested to reinforce biological glasses (28), although no increased
desiccation tolerance was found in human cells when an LEA
protein from an anhydrobiotic nematode, Aphelenchus avenae,
was introduced (53). Actual functions of LEA proteins are still
controversial.
Based on the results of the current work and our previous studies
(21–23, 54–57), we propose the following scheme of induction of
anhydrobiosis in P. vanderplanki. When the body water content
becomes ⬍75%, changes in internal ion balance trigger several
physiological events that induce anhydrobiosis (22). For example,
many genes are up-regulated, including those coding for LEA
proteins (23), a facilitated trehalose transporter (55), an aquaporin
(57), and trehalose synthesis enzymes (K. Mitsumasu, T.K., and
T.O., unpublished data). Trehalose is synthesized in the fat body
(21, 22) and carried via the hemolymph to other cells and tissues
(54). As water content decreases further, the intracellular medium
may change from a water-dominated one to a trehalose-dominated
one, resulting in a uniform distribution of trehalose in the body (Fig.
¶In recent years, values of ⬇115 ⫾ 2°C have been widely accepted as the onset or midpoint value
of the glass-transition temperature of anhydrous trehalose, Tg1 (51, 59 – 62), though observed
value have ranged from 73°C (10) to 117°C (60, 61). Lower values could be due to the effects
of residual water or impurities. There has been more consistent agreement between measurements of the glass-transition temperature of pure water (Tg2), giving ⫺135°C as the onset
value (52, 59). The value of the parameter, k, in the Gordon–Taylor equation is sensitive to the
values of Tg1 and Tg2, which should be determined by fitting onset glass transition temperatures measured at various water contents, with careful choice of the value of Tg1. The
Gordon–Taylor equation parameterized in ref. 51 satisfies these requirements for confidence.
Sakurai et al.
Slow
Abs
0.02
Quick
1280
1260
1240
1220
1200
Wavenumber / cm-1
B
Wavenumber / cm-1
2854
2853
Slow
2852
Quick
2851
2850
-40
-20
0
20
Temperature / °C
40
Fig. 6. FTIR analysis for interaction between cell membrane and sugars. (A)
Slowly and quickly dehydrated larvae were measured by FTIR at 30°C. In the
region 1,280 –1,200 cm⫺1, which shows asymmetric stretching vibration of PAO
atomic groups, the peak position of the each band remained almost constant
within the range of measured temperatures. (B) Slowly and quickly dehydrated
larvae were measured by FTIR between ⫺40°C and 50°C. In the region 2,849 –
2,856 cm⫺1, which shows symmetric CH2 stretching vibration, the peak position of
the each band shifted in a temperature-dependent manner.
5B). In a highly dehydrated state, such as at 3% water content, the
bound water molecules surrounding proteins and membranes are
replaced by trehalose and highly hydrophilic proteins, which may
form hydrogen bonds with them (Fig. 6A) and thereby possibly keep
membranes in the liquid crystalline states at room temperature
(Fig. 6B). Furthermore, the mixture of trehalose and protein is
vitrified and embeds all of the macromolecules such as enzymes,
DNA, and membrane lipids. The immobilized cellular components
can escape physical and chemical destruction during the ametabolic
state characteristic to anhydrobiosis. In other words, the successful
anhydrobiotic larva is just like a substance assembled mainly with
biological organic molecules, with the spatial arrangements required for normal physiology largely maintained by immobilization
in the biological glasses.
Physical change of the larval body to its rubbery state by either
heat or moisture absorption clearly damaged the desiccated larvae.
Because rubbery states are ⬇10⫺14 times as viscous as their
corresponding glassy states (37), change to a rubbery state may
allow spatial disarrangements of cellular components. It should be
noted that uptake of water vapor is quite different from rehydration
of larvae of P. vanderplanki in liquid water, in which rehydration
very rapidly increases water content in larval bodies, such that the
glassy matrix dissolves in water without passing into a rubbery state.
In nature, P. vanderplanki larvae can survive 8 months of the dry
season in dried mud on rocks, despite the fact that surface temperatures of the rocks can reach 60°C at midday (according to our
field survey). The dehydrated larvae should be able to maintain a
glassy state under these conditions because their Tg (onset Tg ⫽
62°C) is higher than the temperature on the rock surface. In the
present study, heat treatment at 80°C for less than an hour did not
Sakurai et al.
kill all anhydrobiotic larvae, even though they probably passed from
a glassy to a rubbery state. We assumed that damaging actions were
delayed by high viscosity in the rubbery state, thus the slowly
dehydrated larvae could escape from death in a brief period.
We conclude that vitrification is a prerequisite for successful
anhydrobiosis in P. vanderplanki. One open question is whether this
conclusion applies to other anhydrobiotic animals. Because anhydrobiosis is found in various taxonomic groups, it is thought that
acquisition of this trait has taken place several times during their
evolution (47). Therefore, it is possible that P. vanderplanki has
developed a different mechanism from those of other organisms.
For example, some anhydrobiotic rotifers lack any nonreducing
sugars in dehydrated state (58) and probably lack sugar glasses. This
suggests multiple strategies to form intracellular glasses (30) or
mechanisms for desiccation tolerance without vitrification. In addition, we stress that anhydrobiosis is never achieved by only
vitrification of the cellular matrix. Many other factors, such as
chemical chaperones, antioxidants, and damage repair systems may
contribute to desiccation tolerance in this chironomid (56).
The mechanisms of desiccation tolerance unveiled in this study
might provide important hints for developing the long-term storage
of a variety of cells, tissues, and possibly even organs in a dry state.
Indeed, efforts are underway to confer desiccation tolerance on
nonanhydrobiotic organisms by introducing large amounts of trehalose into target cells via a facilitated trehalose transporter (55)
and by engineering concomitant functions necessary for protective
responses to desiccation stress.
Materials and Methods
Sample Preparation. A laboratory colony was established from anhydrobiotic
larvae of P. vanderplanki that were collected from rock pools in Nigeria (21).
Larvae were reared through several generations under controlled light (13 h
light:11 h dark) and temperature (27°C). Last-instar larvae ⬇1 mg in body mass
were used for the experiments. Groups of 8 –10 larvae were put into a plastic Petri
dish (50 mm in diameter, 8 mm high). Slowly dehydrated samples were prepared
by incubating larvae at 100% RH for 1 day, 76% RH for a second day, and 5% for
a third day (56). Quickly dehydrated samples are desiccated within a half of a day
at 5% RH. Both types of samples were kept at 5% RH until experiments were
performed.
Water Content of Larvae. The water content of larvae was determined by
thermogravimetrical analysis with an ultramicrobalance (SE2; Sartorius); 10 –15
larvae were heated at 120°C on an open aluminum pan for at least 15 min, after
which the weight of the sample was found to level off.
Quantification of Biomolecules. Trehalose content in a larva was determined
with a Shimadzu HPLC system (LC-10A system; Shimadzu) equipped with a
reflective index detector (RID-6A; Shimadzu), following a previous study (21). To
measure triacylglyceride, a larva was homogenized in 1 ml of chloroform/
methanol (vol/vol ⫽ 2:1) with 1 mg of cholesterol acetate as an internal standard.
After centrifugation at 1,000 ⫻ g for 10 min, triacylglyceride in the supernatant
was determined using an Iatroscan TLC/FID analyzer (Iatroscan New MK-5; Mitsubishi Kagaku Iatron). Total protein was quantified with a Protein Assay Kit II
(Bio-Rad), according to the instruction manual.
Heat Treatment. Slowly dehydrated larvae were transferred from the Petri dish
into a glass tube (15 ml). Tubes containing 20 –30 larvae were exposed to temperatures ranging from 25°C to 110°C for 5 min or 1 h. After cooling for several
minutes at room temperature (24 –26°C), larvae were submerged in distilled
water and their recovery-checked 48 h after rehydration. A larva was judged to
have survived if it could repeatedly contract its abdomen.
Absorption of Moisture. The slowly dehydrated larvae were allowed to absorb
moisture at various relative humidities at ambient temperature (⬇25°C) for 5 or
15 days. Humidity in the containers (⬇2,000 ml) was controlled with saturated
aqueous solutions of MgCl2, Mg(NO3)2, KNO3, or K2SO4, which provide 38% RH,
60% RH, 93% RH, and 98% RH, respectively. Dry air (5% RH) was provided in a
plastic container (20 ⫻ 20 ⫻ 20 cm) with 1 kg of silica gel. Relative humidity in the
containers was monitored with a temperature and humidity recorder (RT-11;
Tabai Espec).
PNAS 兩 April 1, 2008 兩 vol. 105 兩 no. 13 兩 5097
BIOPHYSICS
A
FTIR Measurements. The whole body of a desiccated larva was sandwiched
between two KBr plates. Lattice mapping spectra in the 4,000 –750 cm⫺1 range
were collected by an infrared microscope (IMV-4000 with FT/IR-6200 spectrometer; JASCO) equipped with a liquid nitrogen-cooled, mercury-cadmiumtelluride, 16-element, linear array detector. A screen image recorder camera
attached to the microscope enabled the acquisition of a photomicrograph of the
investigated area. Sequential spectra were collected at 128,000 points (320 ⫻ 400
points) in the specimen. The area of spectral acquisition was 20 mm2 (4 ⫻ 5 mm).
For each spectrum, 32 interferograms were collected, signal-averaged, and Fourier-transformed to generate spectra with a spectral resolution of 8 cm⫺1 and a
spatial resolution of 12.5 m in the transmission mode. The temperature of the
sample was controlled with an LK-600 (Linkam Scientific Instruments) mounted
on the stage of the above infrared microscope, while flowing a dry nitrogen gas
inside the cell where the sample was placed.
measurements were carried out at a heating rate of 5°C/min, with the calorimeter
head under a stream of dry nitrogen as the purge gas.
Data Analysis. IR spectral analyses were carried out using Spectral Manager
(Version 2) and PCA Analysis (Version 2.02) (supplied by JASCO). The glass transition temperatures were read using Universal Analysis software (TA Instruments). The onset and end-point temperatures were taken to be the intersections
of the extrapolated baseline with the tangent at the midpoint in the stepwise
change in heat capacity. The midpoint glass transition temperature was taken to
be the temperature at half-height of the heat capacity change.
DSC Measurements. DSC measurements were performed with a DSC-2920 and
Q-100 (TA Instruments), calibrated with indium. Five to six intact bodies of dried
larvae or one body after humid treatments were placed on a hermetically sealed
aluminum pan with a pin hole. An empty pan was used as a reference. All
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Drs. J. S. Clegg, J. H. Crowe, F. Hoekstra,
and P. Alpert for giving critical and fruitful comments on this manuscript;
A. Fujita for management of stock culture of P. vanderplanki; and Drs. M.
Fujita and K. Mitsumasu for their useful suggestions. This work was supported in part by the Program for Promotion of Basic Research Activities for
Innovative Biosciences (PROBRAIN), Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research
on Priority and Young Areas from the Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan, and a Grant-in-Aid from the Bio
Design Program of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of
Japan.
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5098 兩 www.pnas.org兾cgi兾doi兾10.1073兾pnas.0706197105
Sakurai et al.