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Discovery of "Cancer-Proof" Rodent Cells
anglico sends news of research out of the University of Rochester that has identified a gene that "cancer-proofs" cells in rodents. "Despite a 30-year lifespan that gives ample time for cells to grow cancerous, a small rodent species called a naked mole rat has never been found with tumors of any kind — and now biologists at the University of Rochester think they know why. The findings, presented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that the mole rat's cells express a gene called p16 that makes the cells 'claustrophobic,' stopping the cells' proliferation when too many of them crowd together, cutting off runaway growth before it can start. The effect of p16 is so pronounced that when researchers mutated the cells to induce a tumor, the cells' growth barely changed, whereas regular mouse cells became fully cancerous."
All organisms have these kinds of tumor suppressor genes whether they act to inhibit cell proliferation or promote cell death, in fact most cancers have to have mutations that inhibit these suppressor genes as well as mutations which enhance genes that promote cell growth and proliferation. What would be more interesting than simply identifying the suppressor gene(s) believed to be the cause of the absence of naked mole rat cancers would be in identifying the mechanisms that have protected that(those) gene(s). I wonder if the researchers in question also considered alternate explanations for the absence of cancers in naked mole rats- its very possible that their subterranean environment simply doesn't contain as many mutagens as we are exposed to and as such having a naked mole rat with a mutated (inhibited) tumor suppressor AND a mutated (enhanced) tumor promoter is such a rarity that we simply haven't been able to find one.