Woolly Mammoth blood may lend clues to modern medicine.DEREK K MILLER, FLICKR
A cold-tolerant blood protein of the now-extinct woolly mammoth may be the next best thing for surgeries requiring doctors to induce artificial hypothermia, a medical treatment that reduces the risk of ischemic tissue injury after periods of insufficient blood flow.
Among other adaptations to the cold climates mammoths survived during the Pleistocene ice age more than 1 million years ago, the elephant-like mammals accumulated genetic mutations in their hemoglobin gene, which encodes the blood protein that transports oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. To compare the pre-historic hemoglobin with that of modern elephants, scientists synthesized the blood protein in the laboratory by using fragmented DNA sequences from three different 25,000 to 43,000 year-old Siberian mammoths. The resulting hemoglobin, described in Biochemistry, ...
