Naked Mole Rats reveal a genetic secret of long life

They are strange, bald, underground rodents who look like sausages with teeth and have just revealed the genetic secret of a long life.

A new study of the bizarre naked Mole Rat shows that the animals have developed a DNA restoration mechanism that can explain their longevity.

These flea rats have a maximum life expectancy of nearly 40 years, making them the longest-durable rodent.

The new findings, Posted in Science MagazineIt can also shed light on why naked lame rats are resistant to a wide range of age -related diseases.

Animals are resistant to cancer, worsening of the brain and spinal cord and arthritis, so many scientists want to understand more about how their bodies work.

For this study, led by a team at the University of Tondji in Shanghai, China, the focus was to repair DNA – a natural process in the cells of our bodies. When the threads of DNA – our genetic building blocks – are damaged, a mechanism is triggered that uses another uninhabited thread of DNA for a template to repair the vacation.

The focus of this study was on a particular protein that participates in this system of feeling and repairing.

When a cell feels the damage, one of the substances it produces is a protein called C-GAS. It plays several roles, but what was of interest to these scientists is that in humans it interferes and impedes the process by which DNA knit together.

Scientists believe that this intervention can encourage cancer and shorten our lives.

However, in naked mud rats, researchers found that the same protein was doing the opposite. It helps the body fix the threads of DNA and maintains the genetic code in each cell intact.

Professor Gabriel Balmus studies the repair and aging of DNA at the University of Cambridge. He said the discovery was also exciting and “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to understanding why these animals live such an extremely long life.

“You can think of CGAS as a biological piece of lego-thes basic form in humans and bare mol-rats, but in the Mole-RAT version, several connectors are turned, which allows it to assemble a completely different structure and function.”

In millions of years of evolution, Professor Balmus explained, it seems that bare molls were diverted along the same path and “used it to their advantage.”

“This finding raises basic questions: How does evolution reprogram the same protein to act back? What has changed? And is this an isolated case or part of a wider evolutionary model?”

Most importantly, scientists want to know what they can learn from these rodents to improve human health and to expand the quality of life with age.

“I think if we could turn an engineer for the biology of the naked mall,” said Prof. Balmus, “We can bring some such necessary therapies for an aging society.”