Octopus Edits its own Genetic Code to Adapt to Cold Water

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2377527-octopuses-edit-their-own-genetic-code-to-adapt-to-colder-water/

"Octopuses can adapt to changes in temperature by tweaking their genetic code to alter the proteins that are made in their nerve cells.

Previous research has established that cephalopods, such as squids and octopuses, possess an unparalleled ability to edit their RNA. These “messenger” molecules carry a copy of genetic instructions from DNA to parts of the cell where proteins are made. But it was unclear why the animals do this or what effects it has.

Joshua Rosenthal at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and his colleagues tested how California two-spot octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides) responded to changes in water temperature in tanks.

They gradually shifted the temperature to around 13°C (55°F) for one group and 22°C (72°F) for another group. The octopuses in the colder tank made more than 13,000 edits to their RNA that led to changes in the resulting proteins.

“It’s tempting to think they’re doing this to acclimate to a changed environment and this is where we show that they can do that, at least to one environmental condition, which is temperature,” says Rosenthal."

A useful ability but I wonder how rare that is?

An amazing thing is the genetic code.

"A useful ability but I wonder how rare that is"

We are finding more and more it's the norm. Most mutations are not "accidental" but seem to be under biological control.

"Most mutations are not "accidental" but seem to be under biological control"

Really? Then is it entirely accurate to describe them as 'mutations' at all? Doesn't that term normally imply random, frequently external (i.e. environmental effects, radiation or foreign pathogens) causation for some genetic change?

Mutation just means a nucleotide change (one or more) in the genome. "Accident" is a human valuation. Mutations are random in effect the way genetic recombination, but like genetic recombination is largely under biological control. I've written quite a bit on this over the years but perhaps you didn't see it.

I've lost track how many times I've posted this article (*see especially, the last sentence of the abstract in the screenshot below)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4929541/

*The SOS Response in bacteria is a well-known, well documented example. Environmental stressors induce the SOS response in bacteria where bacteria purposely switch to low fidelity replication enzymes that create more errors during DNA replication. The mutations still occur randomly, but the process is not by accident but is an induced response under biological control that switches on and off as needed.

* The vertebrate immune response is another well known example that when triggered creates hypermutations producing highly varied antibodies

*Yes, environmental mutagens, radiation, etc. still cause mutations, but because those are "accidents" the YECs/IDers are right about that not being too helpful but usually more deleterious vs mutations under biologic control that allow genetic tinkering only in non-essential parts of the genome (vs highly conserved genes for core functions) and thus are mostly neutral (to slightly negative) in effect.

"I've written quite a bit on this over the years but perhaps you didn't see it" - either I didn't see any of that or the importance of what was being stated didn't register because it's clearly a major departure from the more usual model of evolution.

But to clarify the subject, are we talking about a creature's ability to change its genome in a controlled and predictable way in order to produce specific proteins, or a mechanism for throwing up a number of truly random, unpredictable mutations in the genome, some of which may be useful?

It's this section that makes me ask: "where bacteria purposely switch to low fidelity replication enzymes that create more errors during DNA replication"

Obviously errors will much more closely resemble the kind of random mutations that have tradionally been associated with advantageous genetic changes.

The latter. Still random.

When you get a fever due to a viral or bacterial infection, the infection does not cause the fever. The fever is actually the body's response. It's a very clumsy, imperfect way to try to fight off infection.

In a similar way, when there's a new viral infection that you don't already have antibodies for, the vertebrate immune response kicks in and starts mass producing all manner and sorts of antibodies and different variations of them by inducing hypermutations in the "hope" that one of them by luck will be a match to the viral infection. It's an imperfect "Hail Mary" gun-shot approach type play. It's still random luck, but it's induced by cellular mechanisms and under biological control.

Same idea with the SOS response. It's a last ditch "Hail Mary" attempt to try to save the situation by luck, by inducing random mutations with the "hope" that a new bacterium variety will be able to survive the environmental stressor.

There would be no such things as errors if each mutation doesn't have a goal, a standard of right and wrong, there would only be genetic alterations without meaning.

? Mutations don't have a goal. In terms of fitness, most mutations don't have a "meaning."

! Are you assigning a sense of right and wrong to molecules or genes now?

But the term 'errors' applies to mistakes in copying (of DNA) and they occur irrespective of whether any advantageous outcome results.

But the process described above by which the octopus is able to control the production of various proteins is quite different to the 'scatter-gun' reaction of the microbe under stress that's simply trying to survive?

I'm not seeing much connection between the two processes.

Again, unless you assume that copying DNA is something that is supposed to happen there isn't a good or bad mutation, good and bad have to do with things that are supposed to happen not things that have zero interest in how they happen one way or the others, you are borrowing from design terminology.

Do you prefer 'difference in copying' to error? I think it's been made adequately clear that no one is claiming that such an 'error' is automatically deleterious: Some differences of that kind are known to have beneficial outcomes in terms of fitness.

I prefer errors being bad since the process of copying I believe is designed, you are the one that suggests there is no such thing as bad because that would mean there is a good, and good requires a "suppose to" which you deny.

You're choosing to hold a belief that isn't justified by any knowledge we possess. I'm merely forming beliefs based on what we do know and on evidence.

I'd say the latter is the more reliable way of forming propositional beliefs that are consistent with the natural order as we understand it.

Cells then are "designed" to make errors in DNA replication, and those "errors" can be good

It is the other way around you cannot even talk about the process without invoking design language, to describe it, to acknowledge the good things and bad things going on in it. To use language that fits a mindless, goalless process, you have nothing that fits what is going on when it goes on right, or when it doesn't they would both be equally the same in value each and ever time. If yes and no, or right and wrong, or good and bad all have to be applied at the same time for everything then contradictions are all you got.

One actually can talk about it without invoking "design language." One can describe without assigning philosophical/metaphysical conclusions/valuation statements. In fact, that is the best way to talk about it, and the way that it is discussed, in terms of genetic *changes*, not *errors* or "good/bad."

When assigning terms to describe what is going on, the best terms to use are those that carry the greatest reflection of reality, avoiding some due to philosophical reasons due to worldviews simply means we must use less accurate descriptions. The reason would be to make what is going on fit a worldview, not describe accurately what is taking place. How do you describe "loopback" in biological terms without invoking terms that imply design, is that something that requires effort to avoid design, or do you have something you can use that would also be accepted as a mindless description of a very specific type of work?