Moroccan Butterfly’s Record-Breaking Genome Unlocks Cancer Insights

This discovery was recently published in the scientific journal "Current Biology". As a general rule, butterflies have about thirty chromosomes. The common blue has 24, while humans have only 23. But no known species in the so-called "diploid" category, where chromosomes are organized in pairs, has as many as the 229 pairs found in the Atlas Blue. Only the Kamchatka king crab comes close with 104 pairs of chromosomes.

For several decades, biologists have already suspected that the Atlas blue, also known by its Latin name Polyommatus atlantica, carries an exceptional genome. This study has just confirmed it. The Atlas blue has accumulated its additional pairs through progressive fragmentation. And in record time, about three million years, its 24 ancestral chromosomes have been fragmented into hundreds of viable pieces. However, the sex chromosomes seem to have resisted this process, the study notes.

The implications of these mutations go beyond the field of ecology, the researchers indicate, noting that the changes observed in the blue butterfly are reminiscent of those found in some cancer cells, where genome instability fuels anarchic proliferation. According to the study, the Atlas Blue will contribute to better biodiversity protection and, perhaps, open up prospects in medicine.