Dylan Bettencourt
Elephants have been found to hold a large variety of genes that combat cancer – more so than humans.
Cancer is one of the most likely causes of deaths among human beings, while elephants on the other hand are a lot less likely to die from the disease.
Mortality rates among elephants with cancer is only 5%, according to The Times.
One of the genes that fight cancer, called the p53 or better known as “guardian of the genome”, is only found in two different versions in the human body.
Elephants meanwhile have 40 different types of the gene.
According to a report published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, elephant genes could be the key to protecting humans against cancer
Researchers explained that elephants carry much larger and more diverse groups of proteins that fight tumours.
These figures left researchers questioning how the large bodies of elephants, which produce more cells that increase the risk of cancer, can survive most of the time.
The increased number of cells in the elephant body leaves the risk of the cells failing to detect the damaged DNA.
A group of researchers in Europe claim that their team has made progress in solving Peto’s paradox, which is the correlation between body size and cancer risk.
Cancer was named as the cause of death in around 10 million people in 2020, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The research found that the elephant’s cancer fighting gene was also structurally different to humans, giving the animal a larger chance of defending against cancer.
“This is an exciting development for our understanding of how p53 contributes to preventing cancer,” said Robin Fahraeus, of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris, co-author of the study.
Image source: @Treehugger
