They belong to the predators but only eat bamboo – giant pandas propose biologists for a mystery. Chinese scientists come in Frontiers in Veterinary Science With a possible explanation: micro-rna. Those small molecules regulate which genes are active in a cell and would enter the Pandalijf via the bamboo plant and influence the food preference of the species.
Within the Bear Family, the Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) an outsider. Not all his relatives are such pronounced meat eaters as the polar bear, but often there are mammals or insects on the menu with those other bears. The Pandaddeet, on the other hand, consists of 99 percent bamboo, sometimes 30 kilos per day; The largest variation is in different bamboo species per season. Very rarely he eats another plant or a rodent. Nevertheless, the Panda has a gastrointestinal system that is aimed at meat digestion.
The Chinese biologists now think that micro-RNA plays a role. They identified 57 variants in the blood of pandas, which would, among other things, influence their taste and thus generate ‘bambooust’. But the results cannot be associated with hard conclusions, says Michiel Pegtel, micro-RNA researcher at Amsterdam UMC. “For example, we do not yet know whether plants-micro-RNA really does something in an animal body. For the time being this is a nice hypothesis, nothing more. ”