Naked mole-rat macrophage polarization

Abstract

The naked mole-rat (NMR) is a unique long-lived rodent with low cancer incidence. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that NMR evolved to control aging and tumorigenesis is important for biomedicine. It is commonly accepted that the immune system has essential functions in the tumor growth control in animals. In-depth study of the NMR immune system has recently begun, thus peculiarities of antitumor response in these animals remain undiscovered. However, it was shown that myelopoiesis predominates in NMR, therefore it can be assumed that the innate immune cells in the naked mole rat contribute to the successful control of the cancer incidence and tumor growth. This brief provides an overview of ongoing research into the properties of naked mole rat macrophages. Recent study shown that naked mole rat peritoneal macrophages are capable of acquiring an inflammatory phenotype (M1) but polarization into an anti-inflammatory phenotype (M2) under standard stimulus is limited. A more in-depth study using transcriptome sequencing and immunometabolic profiling in novel in vitro model of naked mole rat bone marrow macrophages suggested by our group revealed non-canonical features of M1 as well as M2 phenotypes of naked mole rat macrophages, which can be associated with the evolutionary adaptation of the species. Continued study of the different polarization conditions of naked mole rat macrophages is important to determine unique adaptations in NMR antitumor immunity.