Blind mole rats of the genus are the only mammalian species to date for which spontaneous cancer has never been reported and resistance to carcinogen-induced cancers has been demonstrated. However, the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood. The fact that spp. are also hypoxia-tolerant and long-lived species implies the presence of molecular adaptations to prevent genomic instability, which underlies both cancer and aging. We previously demonstrated the upregulation of transcripts related to DNA replication and repair pathways in Yet, to date, no direct experimental evidence for improved genomic maintenance has been demonstrated for this genus. Here, we show that compared with skin fibroblasts of the above-ground rat, skin fibroblasts in culture resist several types of genotoxic insult, accumulate fewer genotoxic lesions and exhibit an enhanced DNA repair capacity. Our results strongly support that this species has evolved efficient mechanisms to maintain DNA integrity as an adaptation to the stressful conditions in the subterranean habitat.

Subterranean blind mole rat, Spalax, has developed strategies to withstand cancer by maintaining genome stability and suppressing the inflammatory response. Spalax cells undergo senescence without the acquisition of senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) in its canonical form, namely, it lacks the main inflammatory mediators. Since senescence can propagate through paracrine factors, we hypothesize that conditioned medium (CM) from senescent Spalax fibroblasts can transmit the senescent phenotype to cancer cells without inducing an inflammatory response, thereby suppressing malignant behavior. To address this issue, we investigated the effect of CMs of Spalax senescent fibroblasts on the proliferation, migration, and secretory profile in MDA-MB-231 and MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. The results suggest that Spalax CM induced senescence in cancer cells, as evidenced by increased senescence-associated beta-galactosidase (SA-β-Gal) activity, growth suppression and overexpression of senescence-related p53/p21 genes. Contemporaneously, Spalax CM suppressed the secretion of the main inflammatory factors in cancer cells and decreased their migration. In contrast, human CM, while causing a slight increase in SA-β-Gal activity in MDA-MB-231 cells, did not decrease proliferation, inflammatory response, and cancer cell migration. Dysregulation of IL-1α under the influence of Spalax CM, especially the decrease in the level of membrane-bound IL1-α, plays an important role in suppressing inflammatory secretion in cancer cells, which in turn leads to inhibition of cancer cell migration. Overcoming of SASP in tumor cells in response to paracrine factors of senescent microenvironment or anti-cancer drugs represents a promising senotherapeutic strategy in cancer treatment.