Researchers have found an animal that is “immune” to alcohol
Researchers have found an animal that is “immune” to alcohol
By Ross Pomeroy | Published: 2024-11-21 15:35:00 | Source: Health – Big Think
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If a 175-pound man drank five 1-liter handles of vodka a day, he would die. But when the tiny oriental hornet, which weighs half a gram, consumes an amount of alcohol equal to its body size, it continues to live as if nothing had happened.
Many animals, including humans, drink alcohol. Tree-tailed pen shrew Enjoy Wine nectar produced by the bertham palm. African pigs Sometimes sop On fermented marula fruit. Humans down two IPAs at the local brew hall. But no matter how an animal chooses to consume alcohol, we all fall prey to its intoxicating effects.
Except for the Eastern hornet, apparently. In recent experiments described in Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesResearchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel poured huge amounts of alcohol on these insects and watched… nothing happened. They fed the worker wasps a solution containing up to 80% ethanol for a week straight, which is a long period for insects that last only three months. The alcoholic wasps survived just as well as their abstinent counterparts and showed no signs of poisoning.
In another experiment, scientists housed the wasps with water, a sugar solution, and different concentrated ethanol solutions, and let the insects choose what to drink. The insects consumed massive amounts of the alcohol mixture over a 24-hour period, enough to kill a human several times over, but they were unaffected behaviorally and physically.
The researchers also fed the bees in similar quantities. Unlike their wasp cousins, bees became openly intoxicated, and many of them died within the same day.
“Super strength” to withstand alcohol
An explanation for the eastern hornets’ uncanny ability to tolerate alcohol can be found in their genes. The researchers found that these insects have multiple copies of the alcohol dehydrogenase gene. This produces the enzyme that breaks down the alcohol. It is possible that wasps have evolved additional copies over their long history Living with ethanol-producing yeasts. Many species of wasps and hornets contain yeasts in their digestive systems. (Some brewers even have them.) Taking samples These yeasts make new types of beer.) When you bite into the fruit, they spread this single-celled fungus. Yeasts then ferment the fruit, producing alcohol.
What do wasps and hornets get by pulling yeasts into their guts and delivering them to food sources? It appears to have access to additional energy. A gram of alcohol contains seven calories, while a gram of sugar contains four calories. This makes alcohol a more efficient nutritional source, provided that consumers can handle the intoxicating effects. Eastern hornets have apparently evolved to do this, encouraged by the yeast in their bodies.
“As far as we know, the eastern hornet is the only animal in nature that has adapted to consuming alcohol as a metabolic fuel,” said lead researcher Eran Levin of Tel Aviv University’s School of Zoology. statement.
last benefit To wasps: Alcohol kills potentially harmful bacteria. This is beneficial for wasp workers and larvae. Workers often collect carcasses to feed the developing larvae.
Could this discovery be useful to humans?
“With 5.3% of the world’s deaths linked to alcohol consumption, we believe that following our research, it is possible to use eastern hornets to develop new models to study alcoholism and alcohol metabolism,” Levin said.
In a Comment Which was published following the release of the study, Prof. Dr. Rainer Spanagel Agreed upon at Heidelberg University. Spangle specializes in animal research related to alcohol and drug addiction and translating the results to humans.
“The study (…) should serve as a wake-up call for the development of new small molecules or drug repurposing to specifically target alcohol metabolism genes, with the aim of reducing alcohol consumption or harms associated with alcohol use disorder.”
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