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The naked mole rat looks exactly like its name. Naked and a cross between a mole and a rat. And while they’re not exactly a fashion icon, we can still learn a lot from this animal. For example, the animal copes well with pain, it rarely gets cancer, and it recently played a leading role in research into hypoxia – a condition in which the body’s tissues are not sufficiently oxygenated.
The naked mole rat does very well in low oxygen situations, the animal can reduce its resting energy consumption by 85% to save energy. Now, researchers have discovered more about the mechanism that the animal uses to do this. It turns out that they develop a certain protein in their brown fatty tissue, so that they can respond to hypoxia within an hour. They turn off their heat very quickly, so to speak. The mechanism was mainly observed in mole rats living in colonies, suggesting that there is a social side to the mechanism as well.
Because hypoxia also occurs in humans – it can play a role in heart attack, among others, but it has also been seen in an acute form in people infected with coronavirus – researchers hope this finding will eventually help us too.
Read more here: Hypoxia tolerance: hairless mole rats may provide the secret to poor oxygen survival.
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