1st Case of Cancer in Naked Mole Rats Confirmed

by Laura Geggel, Staff Writer   |   February 17, 2016 02:48pm ET

Naked mole rats are renowned for their ability to live cancer-free, even when researchers try to induce the disease artificially.

Not anymore.

For the first time on record, researchers have diagnosed two naked mole rats (Heterocephalus glaber) with cancer.

"These cases represent the first formal reports of cancer in the naked mole rat, a rodent species best known for its extreme longevity and apparent resilience to typical health-span-limiting diseases, including cancer," the researchers wrote in the report, published online today (Feb. 17) in the journal Veterinary Pathology.

The finding isn't completely out of the blue. The researchers had previously followed a zoo-housed naked mole rat colony for 10 years, and found that some of the animals had precancerous lesions. But the new finding is still the first report of full-blown cancer in the critters, the researchers said.

In the first case, a 22-year-old male naked mole rat at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago developed a mass on its upper right chest. The purple and red mass measured 0.6 inches (1.5 centimeters) in diameter. Researchers removed and studied the mass, and reported that it looked like an adenocarcinoma — a malignant tumor that likely started in the animal's mammary or salivary gland.

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Chemical That Makes Naked Mole Rats Cancer-Proof Discovered

June 19, 2013 — Two researchers at the University of Rochester have discovered the chemical that makes naked mole rats cancer-proof.

The findings could eventually lead to new cancer treatments in people, said study authors Andrei Seluanov and Vera Gorbunova. Their research paper will be published this week in the journal Nature.

Naked mole rats are small, hairless, subterranean rodents that have never been known to get cancer, despite having a 30-year lifespan. The research group led by Seluanov and Gorbunova discovered that these rodents are protected from cancer because their tissues are very rich with high molecular weight hyaluronan (HMW-HA).

The biologists' focus on HMW-HA began after they noticed that a gooey substance in the naked mole rat culture was clogging the vacuum pumps and tubing. They also observed that, unlike the naked mole rat culture, other media containing cells from humans, mice, and guinea pigs were not viscous.

"We needed to understand what the goo was," said Seluanov.

Gorbunova and Seluanov identified the substance as HMW-HA, which caused them to test its possible role in naked mole rat's cancer resistance.

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How Underground Rodent Wards Off Cancer: Second Mole Rat Species Has Different Mechanism for Resisting Cancer

ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2012) — Biologists at the University of Rochester have determined how blind mole rats fight off cancer -- and the mechanism differs from what they discovered three years ago in another long-lived and cancer-resistant mole rat species, the naked mole rat.

The team of researchers, led by Professor Vera Gorbunova and Assistant Professor Andrei Seluanov, found that abnormally growing cells in blind mole rats secrete the interferon beta protein, which causes those cells to rapidly die. Seluanov and Gorbunova hope the discovery will eventually help lead to new cancer therapies in humans. Their findings are being published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Blind mole rats and naked mole rats -- both subterranean rodents with long life spans -- are the only mammals never known to develop cancer. Three years ago, Seluanov and Gorbunova determined the anti-cancer mechanism in the naked mole rat. Their research found that a specific gene -- p16 -- makes the cancerous cells in naked mole rats hypersensitive to overcrowding, and stops them from proliferating when too many crowd together.

Continued:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121105200058.htm

Naked Mole Rat Offers Clue to Long Life

Naked mole rats live three to ten times longer than common rats, and several studies have shown the subterranean creatures might hold clues to longer life in humans. A new study finds a protein that could offer some longevity clues.

Genetic analysis of naked mole rats finds concentrations the protein NRG-1, crucial to brain functioning, are higher in naked mole rats than in several other rodent species and remain high throughout their lifetimes. NRG-1 is concentrated in the cerebellum, the part of the brain important to motor control, the researchers explained in a statement.

Future research could reveal how NRG-1 helps to maintain neuron integrity and lead to discoveries about human aging as well, say the researchers, Dorothee Huchon of Tel Aviv University, Rochelle Buffenstein of the University of Texas and Yael Edrey of the City College of New York.

Read on:  http://www.livescience.com/21350-naked-mole-rat-longevity-aging.html