The phrase
"naked mole" refers to a type of mole that has very little hair or fur on its body. It is often called "naked" because its skin is exposed without much covering.
Full definition
But the cells of
naked mole rats behave as if they are «claustrophobic», ceasing to divide much sooner than cells from other species.
They reported that a factor in the cells
of naked mole rats protects and alters the activity of the proteasome, a garbage disposer for damaged and obsolete proteins.
The researchers also found that contact inhibition
in naked mole rats is controlled by two genes, p16 and p27, while in humans it is primarily controlled by p27.
As we said
about naked mole rats in our gallery of weird lab animals, you've got to be tough and talented if you're this ugly.
The researchers doused nociceptors
from naked mole rats and mice in acid, and found the strength of the pain signal passing through the NaV1.7 channels dropped by 42 per cent in mice, but by 63 per cent in the mole rats.
The animals known
as naked mole rats may have turned them away for good.
When Thomas Park, an expert
on naked mole - rats, placed the first animal in a chamber containing only 5 percent oxygen, the mood, he said, was «tense.»
Rochelle Buffenstein, a physiologist who is now at the University of Texas Health Science Center, began
studying naked mole rats in 1980 and took a colony with her when she moved from South Africa to the United States in 1997.
A new paper claims that there may be no such thing as a maximum life span
for naked mole rats.
Gary Lewin, a neuroscientist at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association in Berlin, began working
with naked mole rats because a friend in Chicago was finding that the rodent's pain fibers were not the same as other mammals».
Androgen receptor distribution in the social decision - making network of
eusocial naked mole - rats.
Natural selection is powerful enough to explain how male hammerheaded fruit bats became flying trumpets, how oarfish came to look and move so oddly, how elephants developed their trunks and infrasound, even
how naked mole rat queens came to run their reproductive dictatorships.
«I think this factor is part of an overall process or mechanism by
which naked mole rats maintain their protein quality,» study first author Karl Rodriguez, Ph.D., said.
It's almost impossible to
culture naked mole rat cells in the lab, which made Andrei Seluanov and Vera Gorbunova from Rochester University, New York, wonder if this might be linked to their ability to resist cancer.
And the ice borer itself was just a fantastic twist on a hardly more believable animal, the
Namibian naked mole rat, a nearly blind mammal that has a social structure like an ant's.
Researchers have found that the gene which
gives naked mole - rats» their natural resistance to cancer is unique among mammals.
Like naked mole - rats (Heterocephalus gaber), blind mole - rats (of the genus Spalax) live underground in low - oxygen environments, are long - lived and resistant to cancer.
That's not so special: social ants and bees have worker and soldier castes, and in colonies of the
adorable naked mole rats different individuals have different jobs too.
«
While naked moles - rats are extreme in many aspects of their biology, we predicted that we would see similar molecular adaptations in the HAS2 gene in other mole - rats and subterranean mammals, yet they remain unique even among other mole - rats within the family.»
When Gorbunova genetically
engineered naked mole rats so that they could not make HMM - HA, they became vulnerable to cancer, suggesting that the substance is a key to protecting them.
Earlier this year, a research team from the University of Rochester in New York identified a chemical in
African naked mole rats that seems to protect them against developing cancer.
The Zambian mole rat is related to the
famous naked mole rat, one of only two mammals to live in «eusocial» colonies: like honeybees and termites, a single queen does all the breeding and the others work to maintain the colony.
Biologists have discovered a gene that may
keep naked mole rats cancer - free, a finding they hope can have implications with humans.
Socially regulated reproductive development: Analysis of GnRH - 1 and kisspeptin neuronal systems in cooperatively
breeding naked mole - rats (Heterocephalus glaber).
Leading such an extreme subterranean life has
bestowed naked mole - rats with some pretty impressive talents.
Of the many interesting facts
about naked mole rats, their long cancer - free life has puzzled researchers.
Ewan Smith and colleagues at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany, doused nociceptors
from naked mole rats and mice in acid, and found the strength of the pain signal passing through the NaV1.7 channels dropped significantly more in the mole rats.
When they compared the amino acid sequence
of naked mole rat protein, the researchers found that three of these protein building blocks were different from the rat version and one was also different from the same protein in other mole rats.
One man builds robots, another
studies naked mole rats, a third is a lion tamer and the fourth is a topiary gardener.
But
for naked mole rats, this drop of efficiency likely represents a good compromise, Lewin explains.
Mole rats vary widely in how social they are, from the
eusocial naked mole rats to the solitary small dune mole rat.
Stories on a comprehensive study of all the babies born in 1 year at small New Zealand hospital, and
how naked mole rats break a biological aging law
They found that a dilute solution of
naked mole rat skin cells did start to proliferate, but stopped once the cells reached a certain, relatively low density.
Here are a few of the interesting genomes scientists have sequenced, starting with one of the most recent:
the naked mole rat.
The naked mole rat is a remarkable creature — OK, it's downright freaky — that's said to look like a penis with teeth.
THEY might be bald and ugly, but
naked mole rats never get cancer.
Last week, a research consortium posted the draft sequence of
the naked mole rat's genome online; further study may unlock the genetic clues to this unique animal's survival abilities.
As mammals go,
naked mole rats are one of the strangest.
In
both naked mole rats and mice, acid activated the channels.
In mice, the balance tips in favour of the acid signal making it to the brain — but in
naked mole rats the balance tips the other way and the pain signal dissipates.
In the world of animal models,
naked mole rats are the supermodels.
Now the secret behind
another naked mole rat trait — feeling no pain from acid — could help tackle the pain of arthritis.
The study was the first to analyze the life histories of thousands of
naked mole rats, and found that their risk of death doesn't go up as they grow older, as it does for every other known mammalian species.
These toothy beauties are less well - known than their fur - free cousins,
the naked mole rats, but don't deserve to be.
Pigeons, sea turtles, chickens,
naked mole rats and perhaps even cattle can detect the Earth's magnetic field, sometimes with astonishing accuracy
Claustrophobic cells Three years ago, Gorbunova was involved in another study that described the unusual way in which the cells of
the naked mole rat behave in the lab.
Phrases with «naked mole»