An extra protein gives naked mole rats more power to stop cancer
The protein is associated with a cluster of genes (called a locus) that is also found in humans and mice. It’s the job of that locus to encode–or carry the genetic instructions for synthesizing –several cancer-fighting proteins. As Professor of Biology Vera Gorbunova explains, the locus found in naked mole rats encodes a total of four cancer-fighting proteins, while the human and mouse version encodes only three proteins. …