Researchers have discovered how nature’s oddest creature has given up the secret of its incredible cancer immunity and longevity.
The naked mole rat, a hairless rodent that lives underground has never been known to get cancer, despite its unusually long 30-year lifespan. Researchers at the University of Rochester, New York have achieved a breakthrough by discovering a chemical compound which is a complex sugar, called hyaluronan that exists between cells in body tissues and helps keeps them from clumping and forming tumors.
Known as high molecular weight hyaluronan, HMW-HA is a part of extracellular matrix of many animals but naked mole rats are unusual in producing it about five times the size found in mice, rats and humans. It has an annoying tendency to clog up vacuum pumps and tubing in the laboratory, that’s when it caught attention.
Researchers tested the role of HMW-HA by removing the gooey substance from naked mole rat cells. As predicted, those rats became susceptible to tumors, thereby suggesting its role in conferring resistance against cancer. The research, published in the journal Nature showed that mole rat hyaluronan activates a powerful anti-cancer gene called p16 which prevents cells proliferation when too many of them crowd together. The important gene HAS2 was responsible for producing high levels of HMW-HA in mole rats owing to production-boosting mutations to the enzyme that synthesizes HA and low activity of the enzyme that degrades the molecule.
Researchers then tried to prompt tumor growth by exposing the mole rats to proteins that cause cancer in mice. Nothing happened until the production of hyaluronan was altered. The biologists speculate that naked mole rats have evolved a higher concentration of HA in the skin to provide skin elasticity needed for life in underground tunnels. This trait may have then been co-opted to provide cancer resistance and longevity to this species.
The finding establishes hyaluronan as a key player in cancer that could lead to exciting new opportunities in cancer treatments for human patients.
Source: Xiao Tian, Jorge Azpurua, Christopher Hine, Amita Vaidya, Max Myakishev-Rempel, Julia Ablaeva, Zhiyong Mao, Eviatar Nevo, Vera Gorbunova, Andrei Seluanov. High-molecular-mass hyaluronan mediates the cancer resistance of the naked mole rat. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12234
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