Because of two missing amino acids, this tomcod can swim through PCBs---and survive.
PCBs are nasty pollutants
---they mess with hormones and have been linked to cancer---but until they were banned in 1977, dumping them in US rivers was a common practice for companies like GE
. While plenty of wildlife suffered from ingesting PCBs, some fish in the Hudson and other be-sludged rivers evolved an immunity to the poisons, a intriguing example of quick adaptation that scientists have been watching with interest
. A recent Economist article focusing on this research
describes the fascinating genetic ju-jitsu that allows fish in the Hudson and in the harbor at New Bedford, MA, to keep themselves alive in PCB-contaminated waters.
PCBs do their damage by binding to a protein called the aryl hydrocarbon receptor, or AHR, thus stopping it working properly. AHR is a transcription factor, meaning that it controls the process ...
