“From an evolutionary biology perspective, it’s totally fascinating,” said Joshua Schiffman, a pediatric oncologist at the University of Utah, a few years ago. But he wasn’t talking about children of any kind, he was talking about elephants. In fact, because of the amazing ability of elephants to not get cancer.

against the odds And if you think about it, to the extent that cancer has a lot to do with genetic errors from cell regeneration, animals with more cells should present more cancer cases (for pure statistics only). But this is not true for elephants, which is true in most cases.

What we can learn from elephants. While cancer mortality in humans can reach 25%, it does not reach 5% in elephants. And so, for years, scientists have been studying the habits, physiology and genomes of these giants, trying to find the key that will allow us to improve the way we tackle one of the next century’s most pressing public health challenges. To tell the truth, with some success.

However, we haven’t found a satisfactory genetic explanation for elephants’ cancer resistance so far, and they actually found it in Spain, at the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (IBB-UAB). The key, it seems, lies in the molecular interactions of the p53 protein.

20 times. As I said, there is a downside to the replication of cells that occur in the body (and keeping them functional decades later), the accumulation of genetic errors, and ultimately an increased risk of cancer. What protects the elephant from these mistakes? According to the IBB-AUB team, the key will be in the 20 copies of the p53 gene that thick-skinned people have, as opposed to the only copy humans have.

It’s not for nothing that the p53 gene has been called the ‘protector of the genome’. The p53 protein is activated when DNA is damaged and stops replication of genetic material to repair “bad” copies. In healthy copies, the MDM2 protein turns off the p53 protein. As we can see, the interaction of both proteins is necessary for everything to work.

But of course not 20 identical copies.. It is true that elephants have 20 copies of this gene, but each is structurally different and this increases the regeneration capacity of the animal exponentially. The news is that researchers have discovered key differences between elephants and humans using biochemical analysis and computer simulations.

very interesting way. There is still a lot of work. But “a better understanding of how these molecules are activated and when this can lead to greater susceptibility and response to carcinogenic conditions” is excellent news for the development of targeted drug therapies in humans. Cross our fingers.

Image | Geran de Klerk