Surprisingly long survival of premature conclusions about naked mole‐rat biology

Abstract

Naked mole‐rats express many unusual traits for such a small rodent. Their morphology, social behaviour, physiology, and ageing have been well studied over the past half‐century. Many early findings and speculations about this subterranean species persist in the literature, although some have been repeatedly questioned or refuted. While the popularity of this species as a natural‐history curiosity, and oversimplified story‐telling in science journalism, might have fuelled the perpetuation of such misconceptions, an accurate understanding of their biology is especially important for this new biomedical model organism. We review 28 of these persistent myths about naked mole‐rat sensory abilities, ecophysiology, social behaviour, development and ageing, and where possible we explain how these misunderstandings came about.

Alternative Animal Models of Aging Research

“…Accordingly, naked mole-rat cell division would arrest at a comparatively low cellular density mediated by ultra-high molecular mass hyaluronan (Tian et al, 2013(Tian et al, , 2015. However, this explanation has been questioned due to non-replicability of central results (Braude et al, 2020;Hadi et al, 2020;del Marmol et al, 2021).…”

Development of a Sensitive Bioassay for the Analysis of IGF-Related Activation of AKT/mTOR Signaling in Biological Matrices

“…However, to the best of our knowledge, in naked mole rats IGF1 concentrations have not yet been tested by using existing diagnostic tools from other vertebrate species. Nevertheless, the IGF system is of great interest in this longest-living, and therefore unique, rodent animal model [28]. We used serum samples from individual animals and compared IGF-related bioactivity in serum samples from different worker animals to a serum sample from a long-lived queen.…”

The caloric restriction fallacy, rodent diet aids and the tumor suppression theory of aging

“…Cancer is a significant cause of death not only in mice and humans, but in most animals where cause of death has been investigated (Leroi et al, 2003;Madsen et al, 2017). Apocryphal stories about supposedly cancer-resistant species such as sharks (Lane, 1992;Mathews, 1992) or naked mole rats (Tian et al, 2013) exist, but are not true (Braude et al, 2021;Delaney et al, 2016;Finkelstein, 2005;McCutcheon, 1997;Ostrander et al, 2004;Taylor et al, 2017). Among the few other species largely protected from extrinsic mortality, cancer accounted for 39% of deaths in long-lived dog breeds and almost half of deaths in old dogs (Bronson, 1982).…”