Hello everyone! According to a scientific paper I was reading this morning you can live without DNA few hours, maybe some days!
Every day you move, breath, eat, about thirty seven trillion cells are working hard inside your body to keep you going. These cells are constantly replicating, living and dying as directed by your Deoxyribonucleic acid. Your DNA!
What is DNA and how does it work?
What if you suddenly lost your DNA and how long could you stay alive?
Your genome is 3.1 billion base pairs long. There are more than 20.000 genes and each one codes for a specific protein. Genes comprise less than 2% of the genome, so there are sizeable stretches of your genome that could conceivably be lost without detriment.
The moment your DNA vanished from your body, you likely wouldn't notice a thing, until your body started dying cell by cell and you became 'walking ghost'.
If you lost All your DNA, for a start, you'd lose weight.How? The fastest diving cells in our body are the cells of gastrointestinal system and they cause the death of bacterial symbionts,that's why you will certainly have diarrhea and vomiting.
DNA is the template for DNA replication and for RNA transcription, so the cells that divide frequently will die.
What is DNA replication?
In eukaryotic cells, the essential function of DNA replication is carried out by a network of enzymes and proteins, which work together to rspidly and accurately duplicate the genetic information of the cell.
What is RNA transcription?
Transcription is the first step in gene expression. It involves copying gene's DNA sequence to make an RNA molecule. It is performed by enzymes called RNA polymerases, which link nucleotides to form an RNA strand.
It has three stages:
- Initiation
- Elongation
- Termiation
In eukaryotes, RNA molecules must be processed after transcription they are spliced and have a 5' cap and poly-A tail put on their ends. Transcription is controlled separately for each gene in your genome.
Continuing, DNA is not just a series of perfectly structured molecules. It is your body's library. It stores your genetic information and tells your cells how to grow and function...
The loss of DNA would mean that your cells wouldn't be able to regenerate the proteins. This would lead to cell death, because all of the functions that keep you alive depend on proteins.
For example all the enzymes that are required for cellular respiration and metabolism of food into energy, can be used by cells.
It is easy to imagine what is going to happen if you lose your DNA, if you think Radiation Poisoning or Chemotherapy!
Radiation Poisoning
Gamma radiation destroys your DNA, but you don't die from it immediately. Your body still works, but your immune system slowly collapses. The same thing would happen to you if all DNA disappeared.
To keep you alive, your body cells constantly replicate themselves by dividing. Nearly two trillion cells divide every day.
Some of them, like your bone marrow cells, which are responsible for producing all the cells for the blood, divide more often than others.
They all need instructions from your DNA to function properly. Without those instructions, they'd just stop working.
Bone marrow is the central to the human immune system. Without it, you lose the ability to produce White Blood cells and Red blood cells and the immune system collapses. At this point, even an ordinary infection could kill you! This is what happens with Chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy
Imagine the worst round of Chemotherapy ever. Old-school chemoworks by blocking DNA and RNA metabolism, so you can use it as a first approximation of the effect of removing all the DNA. It will take half an hour to start feeling sick, cause nausea and hair loss.
If you lose all your DNA after few hours all of the cells lining your stomach would die out too. Your body would be unable to digest food. You'd suffer from gastrointestinal disease resulting in: Nausea, Heartburn, Bloating, Constipation and Lose your Hair, since your hair foliccle cells would stop reproducing.
In a normal state, you lose about 40.000 dead skin cells per hour, without being able to generate new cells, you could scratch your skin right off.
Rapid infection or systemic organ failure would kill you possibly in a few hours. You'd die writhing in abdominal pain, dizziness and nausea.
On the bride side, no one would be able to steal your genetic information to violate your privacy!
Don't worry nobody has ever lost all their DNA... Yet!
Thank you for your attention!
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