Naked mole rats reveal genetic secret to long life

They're strange, hairless underground rodents that look like sausages with teeth, and they've just discovered the genetic secret to long life.

New research on the bizarre naked mole rat shows that these animals have evolved a DNA repair mechanism that may explain their longevity.

These burrow-dwelling rats have a maximum lifespan of almost 40 years, making them the longest-living rodents in the world.

New findings, published in Science magazinemay also shed light on why naked mole rats are resistant to a wide range of age-related diseases.

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

This study, conducted by a team from Tongji University in Shanghai, China, focused on DNA repair, a natural process in the cells of our body. When strands of DNA—our genetic building blocks—become damaged, a mechanism is initiated in which another undamaged strand of DNA is used as a template to repair the break.

The focus of this study was on a specific protein that is involved in the damage detection and repair system.

When a cell senses damage, one of the substances it produces is a protein called c-GAS. This plays several roles, but what interested scientists was that in humans it interferes with and complicates the process of DNA reunification.

Scientists believe this interference may contribute to cancer and shorten our lifespan.

However, in naked mole rats, researchers found that the same protein did the opposite. It helps the body repair DNA strands and keeps the genetic code in every cell intact.

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

“You can think of cGAS as a biological Lego piece—the same basic shape in humans and naked mole rats, but in the mole rat version, several connectors are flipped, allowing for a completely different structure and function to be assembled.”

Over millions of years of evolution, naked mole rats appear to have changed the same path and “used it to their advantage”, Professor Balmus said.

“This discovery raises fundamental questions: How did evolution reprogram the same protein to do the opposite? What has changed? And is this an isolated incident or part of a larger evolutionary pattern?”

Most importantly, scientists want to know what they can learn from these rodents to improve human health and prolong quality of life as we age.

“I think if we could reconstruct the biology of the naked mole rat,” said Professor Balmus, “we could offer much-needed treatments to an aging society.”