Why Don’t Bats Get Cancer? Researchers Discover Protection From Genes and Strong Immune Systems
upstart writes:
Why Don't Bats Get Cancer? Researchers Discover Protection from Genes and Strong Immune Systems:
A study to look at why long-lived bats do not get cancer has broken new ground about the biological defenses that resist the disease.
Reported in the journal Nature Communications, a University of Rochester research team found that four common species of bats have superpowers allowing them to live up to 35 years, which is equal to about 180 human years, without cancer.
[...] Bats and humans have a gene called p53, a tumor-suppressor that can shut down cancer. (Mutations in p53, limiting its ability act properly, occur in about half of all human cancers.) A species known as the "little brown" bat-found in Rochester and upstate New York-contain two copies of p53 and have elevated p53 activity compared to humans. High levels of p53 in the body can kill cancer cells before they become harmful in a process known as apoptosis. If levels of p53 are too high, however, this is bad because it eliminates too many cells. But bats have an enhanced system that balances apoptosis effectively.
[...] Cancer is a multistage process and requires many "hits" as normal cells transform into malignant cells. Thus, the longer a person or animal lives, the more likely cell mutations occur in combination with external factors (exposures to pollution and poor lifestyle habits, for instance) to promote cancer.
One surprising thing about the bat study, the researchers said, is that bats do not have a natural barrier to cancer. Their cells can transform into cancer with only two "hits"-and yet because bats possess the other robust tumor-suppressor mechanisms, described above, they survive.
See also:
The impact of altered p53 dosage on hematopoietic stem cell dynamics during aging
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