Cinematic Mutations: Turtle Power!

Join us for this tiny expedition into the world of cinematic mutations. This episode explores the possibilities and limitations of how DNA mutations occur and asks whether green sludge can actually turn you into a ninja, a turtle, or both. 

To go behind the scenes and learn more about this episode, visit “Cinematic Mutations: Turtle Power!”

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Transcript

Chris Powell  00:07

Welcome to Season Five, Episode Two of Tiny Expeditions. My name is Chris Powell, I'm your storytelling guide for this episode.

 Sarah Sharman  00:14

And I'm Dr. Sarah Sharman, here to help you understand the science.

 Chris Powell  00:17

This season we’re all about pop culture. That's right, Tiny Expeditions is getting pop cultured, and Dr. Sharman, what are we talking about today?

 Sarah Sharman  00:26

Today, we're talking about a plotline that is really popular in comic books and movies, especially with superheroes. Yep, we're talking about mutants.

 Chris Powell  00:36

So, if we're talking about mutations, Sarah, does that mean we get to talk about one of my favorite shows of all time?

 Sarah Sharman  00:41

What's that?

 Chris Powell  00:42

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

 Sarah Sharman  00:44

Of course. 

 Chris Powell  00:45

Yes! I've been waiting for this. I love that show. Did you? I grew up with this in the afternoons, the cartoon. Did you grow up watching this or the movie? 

 Sarah Sharman  00:53

I've seen the movie. 

 Chris Powell  00:54

Excellent. Well, for any of those who are unfamiliar, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are exactly what it sounds like. They are teenage, mutant, ninja turtles. They are turtles living in the sewer, and they encounter some kind of a radioactive ooze. And because of this, they're able to walk around and talk, and they love to eat pizza, and they love to fight other mutants. And they are guided by Master Splinter. I mean, the whole storyline is just amazing. What about you? Do you have any mutant stories that you've grown up with that you love?

 Sarah Sharman  01:25

I'm definitely more of an X-Men fan. I just thought it was really fascinating that they all had this X gene that gave them different powers. So they were born with it. And then they had different abilities like, I don't know, time travel, flying, teleportation, it was just really fascinating to me. But I think it brings up a larger discussion of, like, why do we like these mutant storylines so much? 

 Chris Powell  01:48

We love mutants. And part of it, like you said, is because they have superpowers. And there's something inside of us that we all want those superpowers. And we especially love superpowers when it comes to fighting evil people and evil powers. But another reason that they're so important is because they're different, right. And for some of us, that gives us something to connect to, like difference is okay, and it can be a superpower for us that we are unlike everyone else around us. And it's another way of talking about deeper issues, through characters that we can relate to on a different level. 

 Sarah Sharman  02:23

And while these are fictional characters and mutations, they do come from the factual realm of science. Our guest today studies genetic mutations as they relate to cancer. But before we get into the science, we wanted to find out if she has any favorite mutant characters.

 Sara Cooper  02:39

I had to think about this for a minute because my husband is definitely the Sci-Fi fan in our family. So I enjoy many of these movies, but I was hesitant to go too far into detail into any of the characters because I was afraid he would hear it and go, ‘she doesn't even know what she's talking about.’ But probably one of my favorite characters is Wolverine from the X-Men movies. But my daughter loves the Godzilla movies. And we just had been watching the Monarch series on Apple, which is all part of the Godzilla family. And that was pretty fun, too.

 Sarah Sharman  03:12

Even though Dr. Cooper is an X-Men fan like me, and her family really enjoys Godzilla, it didn't take long for the conversation to turn back to the turtles. 

 Chris Powell  03:21

So, about those turtles, how probable is it that that would happen in real life? 

 Sara Cooper  03:26

Oh, pretty improbable, if not impossible? Yeah, DNA changes that result from, you know, falling into a pool of slime are not likely to instantly turn an animal into something that can run around on two legs and speak English. But it is kind of fun to think about how real-life science can give people interesting ideas that ultimately turn into fun shows and movies that we all like to watch. And so in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the idea is that these baby turtles, I think, fall into some slime pit. You probably know more details about how this all happens origin stories of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than me, but the idea is that, you know, they're exposed to chemicals or radiation that changed their DNA and turn them into these crazy mutant turtles. 

 And there is a tiny grain of truth there, you know, based in a little bit of scientific reality in that there are environmental factors, both natural and manmade, that can lead to DNA changes or mutations that ultimately impact people and organisms. And then there's also the normal process of cell division can also change DNA sequences when small mistakes happen in the copying of DNA for the next generation of cells, and that's also important for human disease and a whole variety of evolutionary changes and animals. So there's a grain of truth there. So it's kind of fun to expand on that when we think about making movies and TV.

 Sarah Sharman  04:58

A popular aspect in many mutant superhero and villain origin stories is some kind of exposure to radiation or another nasty chemical that causes changes to the character's DNA and imparts superpowers to them. While the outcome of these exposures is really extreme in Hollywood, it turns out we're exposed to environmental factors in our everyday life that can actually cause changes to our DNA that can cause cancer and other diseases.

 Sara Cooper  05:23

Yeah, so there's actually a variety of things in our environment that can lead to what is generally referred to as DNA damage. So DNA damage is just any kind of problem, exactly what it sounds. Usually, it means it either breaks the DNA or it changes the chemical composition of the DNA in a way that many cells can repair, but not always. And so examples of some of the things that can do that would be radiation, which we already talked about. So that can come also in the form of UV light from the sun. So when we think about getting a sunburn, that's actually a result from the DNA damage that occurs when your skin is exposed to too many UV rays and the skin turns reddish because the cells are inflamed. And if you've had a really bad sunburn before, you can't see me, but I have fair skin, so I get sunburned easily. You actually might have gotten a blister before, and that comes from the cells actually dying from so much DNA damage that they can't survive anymore. So yeah, wear sunscreen, don't do that. 

Some of that DNA damage can be repaired by some of the normal sort of quality control processes that all of our cells have. But sometimes they're difficult to repair. When that happens, and DNA changes are sort of understood in cell or seen in the cell, the cells will often go through a process called apoptosis. So they'll just say, ‘well, we're not a normal cell anymore.’ And that particular cell will actually go through a controlled cell death. But in the rare instances where the mutations can't be fixed, and the cells don't recognize that there's a mutation there, at that point, those mutations will continue through the generations of cells. And sometimes, actually, pretty rarely, those mutations can lead to cancer.

 Sarah Sharman  07:26

And in the case of the turtles, that happened pretty much overnight, but would this take some time for damage to lead to cancer like this? 

 Sara Cooper  07:35

Yeah, so most DNA damage that we're talking about happens randomly. So our DNA is 3 billion bases. And, for the most part, the damage that happens happens in a random location. And many of those DNA changes don't do much to the cell. They kind of just either are repaired and nothing happens, or even if they remain, they don't actually impact the cell. But we have trillions of cells in our body. And if those cells undergo enough DNA damage, even in a random way, there's a chance that a DNA change can lead to a cell that is more efficient at dividing or has some kind of advantage in the division process. Those cells that are growing more quickly and dividing more quickly. Also, they have a higher mutation rate. So it turns into a kind of snowballing effect of additional mutations that accumulate in those cells, because they're dividing more quickly without the same quality control metrics, and then they're also going to be more likely to accumulate additional mutations that make them more cancerous or more aggressive. And so, most cancers actually develop over a relatively long period of time and require the accumulation of multiple DNA changes that ultimately lead to a tumor. And when we detect tumors, typically, they already have most of those mutations because a single cell you wouldn't notice.

 Sarah Sharman  09:13

So, with the turtles, they acquired their mutations after they were already born. However, in movies like The X-Men, some of the superheroes and even the supervillains seem to be born with powers that apparently come from some kind of genetic change, but their parents don't have the power. So how does this happen? And I guess, like, does this happen in real life?

 Sara Cooper  09:40

Yeah, so the idea is that an individual could carry a genetic change or mutation that their parents don't necessarily have. And the essentially easiest way to explain it is that some of our cells have all set of chromosomes, and they're mostly all alike. And in the example I just gave about skin cancer, we talked about how, you know, your skin cells are exposed to UV, and they could get DNA damage as a result, and potentially have a mutation in those skin cells. But skin cells, as everybody knows, are not involved in creating the cells that are important for reproduction, sperm and eggs. So, even though our cells are essentially all the same, they're not exactly the same. 

And so sperm and egg are produced from what we call germline tissues. So that just means the tissues that go are important for reproduction. And there is a chance in the process of producing sperm or eggs that DNA changes can happen in the same way that we talked about DNA being replicated. And as part of normal cell division, there's a special process of cell division that goes into making sperm and eggs because they actually only have the equivalent of one copy of all of the genes, as opposed to most cells that have to. In that process, there is a step where you copy all of the DNA, and mistakes can happen. So when that does happen, even though again, there's all these processes in place in the cell to prevent that from happening, it does occasionally happen. And that's how you can end up with a sperm or an egg that carries a DNA mutation coming from a parent that doesn't have that same mutation. And that does actually happen in real life. Some of the folks here at HudsonAlpha study rare diseases. And many of those rare childhood diseases actually result from what we call de novo, meaning new, mutations. So they're not found in parents, but they're found in children. Those children are born with the mutation because the sperm or the egg that resulted, or that, you know, was fertilized as part of, you know, giving rise to that child carries mutation. And so all of their cells have the mutation, but not their parents don't have it. So yes, that happens in real life.

 Sarah Sharman  12:01

Now, we know that there are multiple ways you can gain genetic mutations. You can be born with them, like the X-Men, or you can be exposed to environmental factors like the turtles and their glowing ooze. We did have one remaining question, though. Can one organism pass their mutation on to another through contact? Like a bite or a cut?

 Chris Powell  12:20

That's a great question in order to answer this, can we set up something here? So go with me here, Sarah. The setting? Southern California.

 Sarah Sharman  12:31

Um, weren't we just in Northern California? 

 Chris Powell  12:34

Yeah, we were there last week. But this time we're in the south, and we've been surfing.

 Sarah Sharman  12:39

Do you even know how to surf? 

 Chris Powell  12:41

We'll figure it out. Or we'll get a stunt double or something like that. But let's just say for the sake of this movie, we've been surfing all day. And we are incredibly hungry. And all of a sudden, we get a text message, and the text message reads, 'Meet me at the corner. I've got some 'za.' 

 Sarah Sharman  12:58

Za? 

 Chris Powell  12:59

Yeah, we're in California. It's short for pizza. 

 Sarah Sharman  13:01

Are we meeting a stranger? 

 Chris Powell  13:03

We'll have to find out. Let's keep going. So we get to the corner. No one is there. So no stranger, but we see an open manhole cover.

 Sarah Sharman  13:13

We're not going down there. 

 Chris Powell  13:15

Yeah, sure. Why not? 

 Sarah Sharman  13:16

Chris, haven't you seen horror movies? That's how you die.

 Chris Powell  13:19

I have, but I have also seen the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And I know that that's where they live. So we're going in the sewer, Sarah.

 Sarah Sharman  13:25

Are we entering your dream sequence right now?

 Chris Powell  13:28

Possibly. Let's see. So we enter the sewer. And what do we see? Leonardo.

Sarah Sharman  13:34

A giant turtle? 

Chris Powell  13:36

We do. It's a giant turtle and neither of us are scared because we love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And Leonardo takes us in to meet the rest of the gang. There's Michelangelo, Donatella, they're all there. And of course, there's some 'za. So at this point, Sarah, we have to make a choice. We're starving. We've been surfing all day long. Our heroes are right in front of us. And they're offering us dinner, but if we touch them or if we happen to eat a piece of pizza after them, are we going to get the same mutation? And if we do, is that really a bad thing?

Sarah Sharman  14:11

I think we're getting pretty deep into this scenario. Since this is a movie, why don't we hit pause for a second and go check in with Dr. Cooper.

Sara Cooper  14:19

I've thought about this in a couple of different ways. So, in my sort of scientific mind, I never like to just shut everything down is impossible. And so what initially popped to my mind when thinking about transferring genetic material between organisms is that in bacteria this actually happens all the time. So there's a process called horizontal gene transfer that allows certain types of bacteria to exchange genetic information, genetic material, and that's actually one of the ways that antibiotic resistance spreads. And so you know that antibiotic resistance, like in hospitals, is an infection and a really important problem that is difficult to solve. And one of the reasons it's difficult to solve is because, you know, one particular type of bacteria may gain resistance to an antibiotic. And then if they're, you know, in the same patient or in same area together, they can actually share that sort of information of resistance with another kind of bacteria. So, yes, in that way, those are certainly unicellular organisms. So, organisms that are only made up of one cell.

Chris Powell  15:27

So you're telling me that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spider Man, Wolverine, X-Men, like all of this? Like, there's, according to what we know right now, this is not a possibility of something happening? 

Sara Cooper  15:51

I don't think so. I can't imagine a way that it would happen instantaneously. Everything I know about DNA tells me it would take time to develop some of those unique traits and skills and powers that all of those superheroes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have. 

Chris Powell  16:06

I think a lot of us are going to need some time to process this and understand that our childhood has been a lie. It is a fun lie. And I think that's okay, sometimes, right?

Sara Cooper  16:18

Absolutely. I think there's a lot of fun in being inspired by the world around us, the science around us and kind of taking what is all around us and imagining what could be taking it to a more extreme level for entertainment.

Chris Powell  16:35

I don't want to put words in your mouth. But I would assume that in some degree, that's what drove you into the field that you're in now, is the idea that the world is bigger than what we actually know. And, you know, let's go figure this thing out. 

Sara Cooper  16:50

I mean, that's one of the best things about my job. That's one of the reasons I love being a scientist is because our whole job is to figure out what we know. And then figure out what we don't know and try to find the next answers to all the questions that are out there, which are nearly infinite. So it's great that every day I come into the lab and get to do something new, find out something that maybe nobody's ever done before or figured out before. And yeah, you know, it's there's the old adage of learn something new every day, and that's what my job is, I get to learn something new every day.

Sarah Sharman  17:26

In our next episode, we'll continue talking about superpower mutations. So we asked Dr. Cooper if she had a dream superpower. If you were to get a superpower, through a genetic mutation, what would you want it to be?

Sara Cooper  17:42

Maybe like Nightcrawler, you know, teleportation or whatever you want to call that. Yeah, maybe that's just because I'm in this season of life where I'm constantly like running between, like job and kids activities. And if I could instantly be in another place, it would be very helpful, including today.

Chris Powell  18:01

Join us next time to find out if Dr. Cooper's dream of teleporting is even possible. Thank you for joining us on this tiny expedition into the world of movie and comic book mutants.

Sarah Sharman  18:12

Tiny Expeditions is a podcast about genetics, DNA, and inheritance from the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. We're a nonprofit research institution in Huntsville, Alabama, with a unique mission. 

Chris Powell  18:24

We bring together scientists and companies to develop and apply genomic advances to make a better world. That's everything from cancer research to agriculture for a changing climate. 

Sarah Sharman  18:34

If you enjoyed this episode, swing by your favorite podcast app and hit that subscribe button. While you're there, consider leaving us a review. It really helps us spread the knowledge. 

Season Five of Tiny Expeditions is made possible in part by our sponsor, EBSCO Information Services. They are the leading provider of online research content, search technologies, and workflow tools serving public libraries, schools, academic institutions, corporations, and medical institutions around the world. Proudly delivering information access for researchers at all levels online at EBSCO.com. 

Chris Powell  19:10

Thanks for joining us.