Naked Mole-Rat Skin Shows Fewer Signs of Aging

Naked mole-rats exhibit a maximum life span that is many times longer than is the case for similarly sized mammals. Further, they are negligibly senescent, showing few age-related declines in function across much of that lengthy life span. That includes maintenance of stem cell populations and regenerative capacity, as well as a near immunity to cancer. Accordingly, the research community is very interested in uncovering the genetic and biochemical differences that allow naked mole-rats to achieve these desirable outcomes. In today's open access paper, the authors report on their investigation of the biochemistry and aging of naked mole-rat skin. The skin in this species, like other organs, shows few signs of degenerative aging in comparison to other mammals. The maintenance of stem cell populations may be one of the more important aspects of this resilience to aging, but there are a few other surprises. Clearly some gene expression in the skin is changing in the latter half of life, but that does not appear to greatly impact the more important functions. It is interesting to speculate as to how it is that gene expression can change while function remains youthful. What is actually changing under the hood? For example, it is known that naked mole-rats do accumulate senescent cells with age, but those senescent cells do not exhibit the harmful behavior found in other mammals. Further, naked mole-rats show signs of oxidative damage to cells with age, but that dam...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs