THEY may not be able to see, but blind mole rats have yielded new insights into fighting cancer. The animals, which live seven times longer than most rodents, never develop cancer and researchers are beginning to understand why.

Experiments on cells from Spalax judaei and S. golani revealed that the animals have a unique strategy for killing cells that multiply too much. A team led by Vera Gorbunova of the University of Rochester, New York, used a growth serum to grow skin-like fibroblast cells from the mole rats. Once they had multiplied beyond a certain point, the cells started churning out interferon beta, a suicidal substance, which rapidly wiped them out.

Previously, the team had shown that another species, the naked mole rat, defies cancer by restraining cell division if the cells are too close together, as is the case in tumours.

The researchers now hope to find out how blind mole rats react to cancers by exposing them to tumour-inducing chemicals. This could open up new ways to combat cancer in humans, says team member Andrei Seluanov, by finding drugs that trigger the same suicidal killing mechanism, but in cancerous cells.

Journal reference: PNAS, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1217211109