Naked mole-rats live as much as nine times longer than similarly sized rodent species. A short summary of what is known of their biochemistry is that they exhibit many of the molecular signs of aging found in other mammals, such as oxidative damage, presence of senescent cells, and so forth, but few to none of the consequences found in other mammals. Naked mole rats stay fit and healthy and physiologically youthful right up until very late life. The near relative species of blind mole-rat has many of the same characteristics, although it is less well studied than naked mole-rats at the present time.

The accumulation of senescent cells is an important contribution to the aging process, as shown by the ability of senolytic drugs to significantly reverse many aspects of aging and age-related disease via clearance of lingering senescent cells in aged tissues. So it was something of a mystery as to how naked mole-rats and blind mole-rats could simply ignore the presence of senescent cells and carry on regardless. Here, scientists determine that this is because blind mole-rat senescent cells do not secrete the potent mix of inflammatory and damaging molecules known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). It is this process that causes all the harms resulting from cellular senescence in mice and other mammals.

This raises interesting questions as to how senescent cells in naked mole-rats and blind mole-rats carry out their normal, transient, beneficial functions in cancer suppression and wound healing. Perhaps they simply do not participate in the same way. Certainly these species have a whole array of other extraordinarily efficient means of suppressing cancer. One of the reasons why naked mole-rats are so well studied is their near immunity to cancer; whether researchers can find mechanisms that can be turned into human cancer suppression therapies remains to be seen, however.

Downregulation of the inflammatory network in senescent fibroblasts and aging tissues of the long-lived and cancer-resistant subterranean wild rodent, Spalax