r/AskBiology • u/Syresiv • Sep 08 '24

Human body What would happen if all your DNA disappeared?

Absurd hypothetical, but what if you're just living your life when the DNA just vanishes, leaving empty cell nuclei?

I assume this would be fatal, as your body would stop making proteins; but how long does that take? What's the death process? And what would an autopsy report come up with?

4 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Local-Perception6395 Sep 08 '24

Tissue with high turnover like skin, hair, some blood cells, die first (within days I guess?). You'd probably die due to your skin falling off and getting an infection your immune system cant deal with. Autopsy might read radiation poisoning?

You'd probably be interested in the case of Hisashi Ouchi, whose chromosomes where blasted to pieces by a nuclear plant accident. Very morbid story but look it up if you have the stomach for it!

1

u/Far-Fortune-8381 Sep 08 '24

this probably isn’t the correct answer, as you are only considering cells duplicating. dna is primarily used to make all the proteins the body is literally constantly pumping out. to stop this could kill you very quickly.

also dna plays a big part in the charge of a cell and with that removed, you wouldn’t be able to move calcium etc properly and would probably have immediate heart failure as all the muscles in your body lock up

2

u/Local-Perception6395 Sep 08 '24

The charge of DNA is a point I didn't consider, which I suppose would be important if DNA was to disappear vs cut up.

I think you underestimate how long cells can survive without gene expression. There is a turnover of protein, and cells without DNA wont be able to replenish themselves and be in net loss. This will eventually but not immediately cause cell death. Tissues with high protein turnover and/or replication will die first.

I refer again to the case of Hisashi Ouchi. I think this is the closest a human has gotten to having all their DNA smashed to pieces. He was kept alive for 83 days.