Spontaneous and experimentally induced pathologies in the naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber)

Abstract

The naked mole rat (Heterocephalus glaber, Rüppell, 1842) is a unique eusocial rodent with unusually long lifespan. Therefore, the study of spontaneous and experimentally induced pathologies in these animals is one of the most important tasks of gerontology. Various infections, noninfectious pathologies (including age-dependent changes), and tumors have been described in the naked mole rat. The most frequent pathologies are traumas (bite wounds), purulent and septic complications of traumatic injuries, renal tubular calcinosis, chronic progressive nephropathy, hepatic hemosiderosis, testicular interstitial cell hyperplasia, calcinosis cutis, cardiomyopathy, and dysbiosis-related infectious lesions of the digestive system. However, the summarized data on pathology (including tumor incidence) and on the causes of mortality are insufficient. There are only few publications about the results of experiments where pathologies were induced in the naked mole rat. All these problems could be subjects for promising future studies without which adequate studies on mechanisms providing the long lifespan of the naked mole rat are impossible, as well as the elucidation of causes of tumor resistance of this species.

Macrophages from naked mole-rat possess distinct immunometabolic signatures upon polarization

“…The anti-pathogen branch of neonate immune system appeared underdeveloped making animals susceptible to infections, but, at the same time, flexible enough to provide peripheral tolerance ( 51 ). In line with this, NMR is surprisingly susceptible to certain viruses ( 4 , 5 ), protozoans ( 52 ) and skin bacteria, which cause severe purulent lesions ( 53 ). Since the NMR immune system at different age was not yet systematically studied, it is difficult to interpret its features to either neonate-like or senior-like type on the basis of bone marrow cellular composition or immune marker distribution.…”

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

“…Manskikh, Averina, & Nikiforova (2017) argue that the low cancer incidence recorded in naked mole‐rats may be biased by high numbers of previously euthanized, presumably young, individuals examined by Delaney et al . (2013, 2016) as well as the relative scarcity of old individuals (Ruby et al ., 2018; Dammann et al ., 2019) in which cancer is more likely to manifest.…”

“…Whereas one study in wild-caught house mice found cancer rates of approximately 9% (Gardner et al, 1973), another study reported that long-lived wild-derived mice die primarily of cancer (Harper, Leathers, & Austad, 2006). Manskikh, Averina, & Nikiforova (2017) argue that the low cancer incidence recorded in naked mole-rats may be biased by high numbers of previously euthanized, presumably young, individuals examined by Delaney et al (2013Delaney et al ( , 2016 as well as the relative scarcity of old individuals (Ruby et al, 2018;Dammann et al, 2019) in which cancer is more likely to manifest. Nevertheless, the reported tumour incidence is also close to zero in other bathyergids (Garcia Montero, Burda, & Begall, 2015;R.…”