3 ms·
It’s not just naked mole rats. Some sharks, turtles, and other animals exhibit the same phenomenon. They’re not immune to cancer, but their defenses (mostly mul
by akiselev 5y ago
It’s not just naked mole rats. Some sharks, turtles, and other animals exhibit the same phenomenon. They’re not immune to cancer, but their defenses (mostly multiple layers of contact inhibition) prevent tumors from establishing themselves and metastasizing or growing to a dangerous size in their natural environment. The adaptations themselves tend to be mutation resistant so the probability that a cell will become malignant and lose those layers of protection is astronomical, whereas most animals have many single points of failure, so to speak.
Naked mole rats reportedly develop cancer when living in zoos where they are exposed to much more oxygen than they’re used to. Their genetics naturally prevent cancers when they’re living in a hypoxic underground environment but when exposed to the oxidative stresses of living above ground, the mutation rate can overcome their natural defenses
- lordnacho 5y agoRight. But how did anyone come across this knowledge? Who would suspect that a particular creature might be better at fighting cancer than all the others?
- ceejayoz 5y agoSomeone does a couple hundred necroscopies of dead individuals and finds no cancer deaths and decides to go digging, I suspect. There are captive colonies of the things, as they're more obviously interesting in a variety of ways.
- akiselev 5y agoContact inhibition is among the most studied topics in biology due to its significance in cancer formation, aging, dermatology, etc. Scientists are always on the look out for species with interesting adaptations. The general process goes: naturalists, zoologists, etc gather data on a species. Oncology/aging/whatever researcher notices a peculiar data point - in this case the naked mole rats' extreme longevity compared to other rodents - and investigates. The peculiar data points (lifespan, rate of cancer, etc.) percolate until someone stumbles on a plausible mechanism [1]. Rodents reproduce like crazy so it wouldn't take long to notice. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/106/46/19352 https://www.pnas.org/content/106/46/19352