A mutant wolf roaming the Chernobyl exclusion zone has developed a cancer-resistant genome that could hold the key to developing treatments for human cancer.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone has been plagued by high radiation levels since the reactor exploded in 1986. Humanity has abandoned the 1,000 square mile Chernobyl exclusion zone, allowing wildlife to reclaim the area 38 years since the worst nuclear disaster in history.
Despite being exposed to carcinogenic radiation, irradiated wolves appear to have developed protective mutations that make them more resistant to cancer.
Karla Love, an evolutionary biologist and ecotoxicologist in the Shane Campbell Staton Laboratory at Princeton University, has been studying mutant wolves in the CEZ for 10 years.
In 2014, Love and colleagues collected blood samples from wolves in the Chernobyl exclusion zone to understand how wolves responded to carcinogenic radiation. Scientists also fitted the wolves with radio collars to track their location and radiation exposure.
“We measure where and how much of them are in real time. [radiation] They are exposed to: press release.
According to the study, wolves in the CEZ are exposed to more than 11.28 millirem of radiation every day over their lifetime, more than six times the legal limit for human workers.
Researchers found that mutated wolves have altered immune systems similar to cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy.
Genetic analysis suggests that parts of the wolf’s genome have developed resistance to cancer. Additionally, there was a “promising” finding that certain regions of the wolf’s genome appear to be resistant to increased cancer risk.
“Most human studies have found that mutations increase the risk of cancer ( BRCA But Love’s research hopes to identify protective mutations that increase the odds of surviving cancer,” the news release said.
of new york post reported, “This discovery is especially valuable because scientists have learned that canids fight cancer in a manner more similar to human cancer than lab rats.”
Love’s research has been severely hampered, with her team not returning to the CEZ due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Love’s research was presented last month at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology annual meeting in Seattle, Washington.
Radiation from nuclear explosions may also have altered the DNA of dogs in the CEZ.
Last year, scientists at the University of South Carolina and the National Human Genome Research Institute tested the DNA of 302 stray dogs.of study He said stray dogs living near the Chernobyl power plant showed clear genetic differences from dogs living 10 miles away from the disaster site.
2011 study They discovered that CEZ birds have smaller brains.
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