5 ms·

Naked mole rats never get cancer

18 points by prat 17y ago

wyday 17y ago
Where's the full article? All I see is an introduction.
- prat 17y ago
  I am not sure of the source of this post (newscientist - they haven't mentioned any references) but I found a paper describing the new animal model using naked mole rat in the area of aging. The paper also talks about highly reduced incidence/severity of cancer. "The Naked Mole-Rat: A New Long-Living Model for Human Aging Research" http://biomed.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/content/full/60/11/1369 http://biomed.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/content/full/60/11...
- prat 17y ago
  a google search got me another article "Genetic Mechanism In Mole Rats Can Be Targeted In Cancer Research" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315223845.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315223845.ht... "Researchers have found that subterranean mole rats have developed cellular mechanisms in order to survive the low levels of oxygen in their underground habitat -- mechanisms that are similar to those used by tumors to survive and progress in humans."
- teuobk 17y ago
  It doesn't sound like it has been published. Here's the abstract from the conference where the results were presented: http://www.sens.org/index.php?pagename=sens4_abstract&ID=135 http://www.sens.org/index.php?pagename=sens4_abstract&ID...
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
mechanical_fish 17y ago
Unfortunately, this is just a special case of a much more troublesome problem: Although plain old laboratory mice do get cancer, they may well do so via very different mechanisms from humans. A mouse weighs 20 grams. I weigh somewhere around 100kg. So I consist of approximately 5000 times more cells than a mouse does. The longest-lived mouse in recorded history [1] lived just over 5 years. Most mice die of old age in a couple of years. The oldest humans live to be over 100. Thus, my cell lines will undergo somewhere between 20 and 50 more cell divisions than a cell in a living mouse. [2] What this means is that human cells have to be much better designed to resist cancer than mouse cells. If humans were no more cancer-resistant than mice we'd all be getting cancer as infants. And evolution hasn't bothered to design mice that will resist cancer for fifty years, because no mouse has ever had a chance to live to be fifty. So while many of the basic facts of cancer are similar in mice and in humans, eventually the details are bound to diverge. This is an uncomfortable fact for researchers. This also means that, while it's great for the mole rats that they don't get cancer, that doesn't mean they're somehow more immune to cancer than the average human. Even though mole rats are legendary for their longevity -- they can live into their twenties [3] -- the average human has to be less cancer-prone than a mole rat just to get through puberty without needing chemotherapy. -- [1] Google: "Methuselah Mouse Prize" [2] This is a really simplistic calculation: Among other things, we're neglecting the fact that mice have a rather different metabolic rate from humans, and that different kinds of cells divide at different rates. [3] Metabolism again: One reason that mole rats are thought to live so long is that they have very slow metabolic rates. Which probably also affects their susceptibility to cancer.
- prat 17y ago
  > Thus, my cell lines will undergo somewhere between 20 and 50 more cell divisions than a cell in a living mouse. Just curious - is cell division time period same for humans and mice?
  - mechanical_fish 17y ago
    I don't know for sure. I suspect it is not, in general. I also suspect that it varies more from cell type to cell type within a creature than from species to species within the mammals.
kqr2 17y ago
It also appears that people with down syndrome have lower rates of cancer: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/chb-wdp051809.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/chb-wdp051809...

18 points by prat 17y ago

wyday 17y ago

Where's the full article? All I see is an introduction.

prat 17y ago
I am not sure of the source of this post (newscientist - they haven't mentioned any references) but I found a paper describing the new animal model using naked mole rat in the area of aging. The paper also talks about highly reduced incidence/severity of cancer. "The Naked Mole-Rat: A New Long-Living Model for Human Aging Research" http://biomed.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/content/full/60/11/1369 http://biomed.gerontologyjournals.org/cgi/content/full/60/11...
prat 17y ago
a google search got me another article "Genetic Mechanism In Mole Rats Can Be Targeted In Cancer Research" http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315223845.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315223845.ht... "Researchers have found that subterranean mole rats have developed cellular mechanisms in order to survive the low levels of oxygen in their underground habitat -- mechanisms that are similar to those used by tumors to survive and progress in humans."
teuobk 17y ago
It doesn't sound like it has been published. Here's the abstract from the conference where the results were presented: http://www.sens.org/index.php?pagename=sens4_abstract&ID=135 http://www.sens.org/index.php?pagename=sens4_abstract&ID...

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

mechanical_fish 17y ago

Unfortunately, this is just a special case of a much more troublesome problem: Although plain old laboratory mice do get cancer, they may well do so via very different mechanisms from humans. A mouse weighs 20 grams. I weigh somewhere around 100kg. So I consist of approximately 5000 times more cells than a mouse does. The longest-lived mouse in recorded history [1] lived just over 5 years. Most mice die of old age in a couple of years. The oldest humans live to be over 100. Thus, my cell lines will undergo somewhere between 20 and 50 more cell divisions than a cell in a living mouse. [2] What this means is that human cells have to be much better designed to resist cancer than mouse cells. If humans were no more cancer-resistant than mice we'd all be getting cancer as infants. And evolution hasn't bothered to design mice that will resist cancer for fifty years, because no mouse has ever had a chance to live to be fifty. So while many of the basic facts of cancer are similar in mice and in humans, eventually the details are bound to diverge. This is an uncomfortable fact for researchers. This also means that, while it's great for the mole rats that they don't get cancer, that doesn't mean they're somehow more immune to cancer than the average human. Even though mole rats are legendary for their longevity -- they can live into their twenties [3] -- the average human has to be less cancer-prone than a mole rat just to get through puberty without needing chemotherapy. -- [1] Google: "Methuselah Mouse Prize" [2] This is a really simplistic calculation: Among other things, we're neglecting the fact that mice have a rather different metabolic rate from humans, and that different kinds of cells divide at different rates. [3] Metabolism again: One reason that mole rats are thought to live so long is that they have very slow metabolic rates. Which probably also affects their susceptibility to cancer.

prat 17y ago
> Thus, my cell lines will undergo somewhere between 20 and 50 more cell divisions than a cell in a living mouse. Just curious - is cell division time period same for humans and mice?
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  I don't know for sure. I suspect it is not, in general. I also suspect that it varies more from cell type to cell type within a creature than from species to species within the mammals.

kqr2 17y ago

It also appears that people with down syndrome have lower rates of cancer: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/chb-wdp051809.php http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/chb-wdp051809...