Elephants ought to get a lot of cancer. They’re huge animals, weighing as much as eight tons. It takes a lot of cells to make up that much elephant.
All of those cells arose from a single fertilized egg, and each time a cell divides, there’s a chance that it will gain a mutation — one that may lead to cancer.
Strangely, however, elephants aren’t more prone to cancer than smaller animals. Some research even suggests they get less cancer than humans do.
On Tuesday, a team of researchers reported what may be a partial solution to that mystery: Elephants protect themselves with a unique gene that aggressively kills off cells whose DNA has been damaged.
blolfighter on August 15th, 2018 at 11:54 UTC »
So if being huge means you have huge guts, rip and tear you have a higher risk of cancer, what about whales? Many whales are even bigger than elephants, do they also have this cancer-killing gene?
Sumth1nSaucy on August 15th, 2018 at 11:28 UTC »
Elephants also have multiple copies of the gene P53, what is commonly called the "defender of the genome" that aids in DNA reparation, preventing the accumulations of mutations that cause cancer. Humans, however, only have one copy of P53.
LIGHT130 on August 15th, 2018 at 10:37 UTC »
Does anybody know how to track the progress on these studies? Because you hear from them once and then they’re gone.