• Question: how are mole rats resistant to camcers. what genes or special feature do they have?

    Asked by to Ben on 18 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ben White

      Ben White answered on 18 Jun 2014:

      Hi again @taffy123, there’s a lot of exciting discoveries being made on this subject, and likely many explanations for why naked mole rats dont get cancer and live so long…

      Last year scientists found that the naked mole rat’s fat cells secrete a sugar called ‘high-molecular-mass hyaluronan’, and that this sugar prevents cancer cells from clumping together and forming tumors. The Has2 gene has been found to be responsible for encoding of and enzyme that makes hyalurona, and is slightly different in naked mole rats compared to us; it makes very large hyalurona sugars while ours are five times smaller. This is very exciting for potential cancer treatments, as we already produce hyalurona for stuff like anti-wrinkle creams, and we also have the gene for it and actively make this sugar inside our cells.

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