Resistance To Cancer
Naked mole rats appear to have a high resistance to cancer; cancer has never been observed in them. A potential mechanism that averts cancer is an "over-crowding" gene, p16, which prevents cell division once a group of cells reaches a certain size. Most mammals, including naked mole rats, have the gene p27 which does a similar task, but prevents cellular reproduction at a much later point than p16 does. The combination of p16 and p27 in naked mole rats cells is a double barrier to cell proliferation. Hypersensitivity to contact inhibition may be the reason for the cancer resistance of the naked mole rat.
Blind mole rats Spalax golani and Spalax judaei also appear to be immune to cancer but by a different mechanism.
Read more about this topic: Naked Mole Rat
Famous quotes containing the words resistance to, resistance and/or cancer:
“High treason, when it is resistance to tyranny here below, has its origin in, and is first committed by, the power that makes and forever re-creates man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The free man is a warrior.—How is freedom measured among individuals, among peoples? According to the resistance that must be overcome, according to the trouble it takes to stay on top. The highest type of free man must be sought where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five steps away from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The same people who tell us that smoking doesn’t cause cancer are now telling us that advertising cigarettes doesn’t cause smoking.”
—Ellen Goodman (b. 1941)