There is a plethora of reasons why I find the naked mole-rat the most interesting animal:
General description
The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is a rodent that is native to the drier parts of tropical grassland of East Africa, predominantly in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia.
The naked mole-rats live in large colonies (50-200 animals) underground. They are the first mammal to exhibit eusociality, and they live in ant-like colonies, complete with queens and workers. Just some of the rats are fertile while the rest are workers.
Typical individuals are 8 to 10 cm long and weigh 30 to 35 grams.
Queens are larger and may weigh up to 80 grams.
Eusociality is the highest level of organization of animal sociality, and is characterised by cooperative brood care (including brood care of offspring from other individuals), overlapping generations within a colony of adults, and a division of labor into reproductive and non-reproductive groups.
They are master miners
They make very large and complex underground tunnels.
Their legs are very short and the can move backward as fast as forward. They use around 25% of their energy on closing their jaws while they dig.
Physiology
The naked mole-rat is very well adapted to living underground with low oxygen levels. They do have very small lungs, but their hemoglobin has an extremely strong affinity to oxygen.
Thus, the naked mole-rat can survive in air that contains only 5% oxygen for 5 hours!
One of the reasons is that they can lower their heart rate from 250 to 50 beats per minutes during anoxia.
They are also almost ectothermic (cold-blooded), meaning that they regulated their body temperature according to the environment.
The glycolysis is fructose-driven and give anaerobic glycolysis by a rewired pathway that avoids tissue damage. Science, 2017
Diet
The naked mole-rat feeds on very large tubers. A single tuber can provide a colony with food lasting for months, or even years, as the rats eat the inside but leave the outside intact, allowing the tuber to regenerate
They are highly resistant to cancers
Even though scientists have used every ‘trick’ in the lab to induce cancer (radiation, various toxins), no one has actually been able to spontaneously induce cancer or seen a naked mole rat with a tumor.
One of the main reasons are probably that the naked mole-rat expresses an extremely high molecular mass hyaluronan (HMW-HA) that is over 5 times larger than hyaluronan in humans. Nature, 2013
The extremely high molecular mass hyaluronan makes the skin very loose and stretchy. This allows it to move through tight underground tunnels without ripping its flanks as it rubs against dirt and rocks.
One mechanism why HMW-HA can prevent cancer is due to the fact that HMW-HA makes the mole-rats cells hypersensitive to contact inhibition by stimulating an intracellular pathway that induces expression of p16 and suppresses oncogenic transformation. J Cell Commun Signal, 2015
They also have ribosomes that make almost error free proteins. PNAS, 2013
They live long
The naked mole-rat can live up to 30 years, much longer than other similar size rodents.
The reasons for this is probably complex, but they do express much more DNA repair genes than other rodents, so they can keep their genome healthy longer.
As stated previously, the rarely get cancer.
Interestingly, they have a very low metabolism during harsh times with low oxygen levels, and lower metabolism reduces oxidative stress.
They do not feel pain
Naked mole rats lack substance P, which is a key transmitter for sending pain signal to the CNS. J Comp Neurol, 2003
Thus, without substance P capsaicin has no pain mediating effect, so this rat can eat hot chilli effortlessly!
Also, I suppose it would be very unpractical to feel pain if you constantly rub your skin against dirt and rocks.
Conclusion
The naked mole-rat is a really strange animal, but is extremely well adapted to its environment.
For example, this rat could be very good animal model for studying metabolism and anoxia.
The role of the extremely high molecular weight hyaluronan (HMW-HA) in preventing cancers in this rat, is very interesting.
Hypothetically, HMW-HA could be used as nano-therapy.
Also, by further studying the mechanism involved in cancer protection, this could elucidate novel targets for therapy against various cancers in humans.
References
Scientific papers as cited
Wikipedia.org
Oh my God I love The naked mole rat its my favorite strange mammal. Only the platypus can compete it in strangeness :D. I have actually made a post about this creature like a month ago but I won't spam your wall :P resteemed because I love it and more people MUST know about it 😁
I read your naked mole-rat post now: Very entertaining read! I know next to nothing about platypus. Going to read about it. Also, thanks for the resteem:)
Ok I will post about the platypus tomorrow just for you 😘I will also make sure to give you a special mention. I wanted to make a post about it a long time now but i kept postponing it. I just wish everyone on steemit shared my obsession for bizarre creatures. XD
Up with a small delay: https://steemit.com/animals/@trumpman/meet-the-platypus-a-very-strange-mammal-that-lays-eggs hope you like it ^-^
Interesting read. Now I am wondering if this was the animal they use to treat my sister's husband...
Thanks! The research on the naked-mole rat, has not lead to new treatment of cancer in humans yet.
I know, what they use on him is experimental, he is pretty much a test subject. But so far it seemed to have helped him, while he was pretty much considered done for by the doctors that previously treated him.
Ok, very interesting! That was new to me:) Great news!
Hey if you don't min d could you please ask about the animal? I am really curious! I hope he lives a long and healthy life :)
Thanks! Yeah I will be asking as I am curious. too.
But what good is 30 years of life if you're living it naked, underground? =D
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I thought that the naked mole rat also has a mutated version of p53 which also contributes to it not getting cancer, or does this not have an influence?
Thanks for reading. I have not found anything about naked mole rat and mutated p53, so that is probably not the mechanism. Also, p53 is a tumor suppressor gene, so mutations give increased cancer risk.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3511137/
Jesus what an ugly animal!
Cute:)
I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder with regard to this :-)
It's cute in a bizarre way 😊😊😊😊😊😊
What an incredible animal. I had no idea it was an anti-cancer rat. Now only if it wasn't so damn ugly. I mean only a face a mother could love! Great post @janusface. I enjoyed it!
looks like i got too much knowledge about them today !!!
Pretty cruel to try give the lab rodents cancer lol, what have they done. Good thing this naked mole-rat is stronger and don't feel pain.
@janusface,
"They are highly resistant to cancers" a good news! Definitely scientists will go through it and find a permanent cure to cancers!
Very interesting article and can you please tell me are they poisoned or not? I think they are...
Cheers~
amigo #resteemia at your service
excellent post. very useful information & hope the cure for cancer will be there @janusface
ReSteemia
'UpVoted ReSteemed Commented'
@janusface - oh my goodness, it looks funny. naked rat :) Nice article Sir. Love your work. Therefore, I wish to ReSteem your post.
+W+ [UpVoted & ReSteemed]
Nice photography!!
its cool!!
nice to read you, keep up the good work!!
Wow that first picture scared the bejeebers out of my little kid :)
Tnx for the info!
The animal is certainly strange @janusface, but I thought that scientists need to examine their DNA and learn the opportunity to fight cancer.
Thankyou for sharing @janusface
Thanks for @janusface this post,
upvote
Thank you for the knowledge. I never knew about the naked-mole rat.
This was a very interesting reading... Thanks for briging this... I like a lot...
Glad you liked it:)
Greatpost @janusface the science scientific thank you..
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Let's be real here.. That thing is hideous! It's probably resident to cancer because the disease is scared to get close to that thing. I would be too!
Just kidding lol. Upvoted!
Clicked on this because the photo was so creepy, yet interesting. Interesting little creatures! I'm grateful they don't live anywhere around me! 😨😄
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STOPLooks kinda cute:O Reminders....