The bat’s longevity secrets revealed
– Bats are the longest-lived mammals relative to body size, and a species called the greater mouse-eared bat lives especially long. Researchers now have unlocked some of this bat’s longevity secrets, with hints for fighting the effects of ageing in people.
Scientists said on Wednesday that unlike in people and most other animals, in this bat species the structures called telomeres located at the end of chromosomes – thread-like strands inside a cell’s nucleus that carry genes determining heredity – do not shorten with age.
Only 19 mammal species live longer than humans relative to body size. Eighteen of them are bats, some living more than four decades. The other is a weird African rodent called a naked mole rat.
The researchers identified two genes in the greater mouse-eared bat that may be responsible for its unique longevity adaptation. These mechanisms could be the focus of future studies on ageing, with an eye toward extending healthy lifespans in people, the researchers said.
Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that shorten each time a cell divides. This drives the natural ageing process, leading to a breakdown of cells that over time can drive tissue deterioration and eventually death.
“Studying exceptionally long-living mammals that have naturally evolved mechanisms to fight ageing is an alternative way to identify the molecular basis of extended ‘health spans’,” said biologist Emma Teeling of University College Dublin in Ireland, one of the study leaders.
“Bats are an exciting new model species that will enable us to identify new molecular mechanisms that drive healthy ageing.”
The researchers studied 493 individual bats from four species – the greater mouseeared bat and Bechstein’s bat, both members of the bat genus called Myotis; the greater horseshoe bat; and the common bent-wing bat. Of these, the greater mouseeared bat had the longest lifespan, about 37 years. –