We Were Wrong About How Whales Dodge Cancer

What the film says

1. Bowhead fibroblasts required fewer cancer-driving alterations than human fibroblasts in laboratory transformation experiments.

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2. Bowhead cells repaired DNA double-strand breaks more efficiently and accurately than the other mammals tested.

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3. The tested bowhead cells accumulated fewer mutations than human cells.

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4. CIRBP was abundant in bowhead cells and was also detected in humpbacks and dolphins.

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5. Reducing CIRBP impaired bowhead-cell repair, while adding bowhead CIRBP improved repair in human cells.

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6. Increasing CIRBP extended fruit-fly lifespan and improved survival after irradiation.

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7. Human cells cultured at 33°C, about 91°F, made more CIRBP than cells at 37°C, about 99°F.

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8. Bowhead fibroblasts showed lower basal p53 activity and no greater apoptosis than human cells after genotoxic stress.

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9. The research used bowhead tissue from Iñupiaq subsistence harvests in Utqiaġvik, Alaska.

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10. A Barrow study found hepatic fatty tumours in seven of 111 harvested bowheads examined during 2012–2016.

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11. The described bowhead liver lesions were lipomas and myelolipomas with features indicating benign growth.

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12. Arctic conditions and the whales' enormous organs make thorough post-mortem examination difficult.

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13. Cancer was found in 27% of examined adult belugas recovered dead from the St. Lawrence estuary.

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14. The beluga researchers proposed that exposure to industrial pollutants contributed to the cancers.

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15. African elephants have multiple TP53 copies, including retrogenes, whereas humans have one copy in the haploid genome.

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16. In laboratory tests, elephant blood cells underwent more apoptosis after irradiation than healthy human blood cells.

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17. Bowheads inhabit Arctic and subarctic waters.

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18. Age-estimation studies suggest bowhead whales can live for more than 200 years.

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19. Vera Gorbunova initially expected whale cells to need six or seven oncogenic hits to become cancerous.

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20. The bowhead study was conducted by Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov's University of Rochester team and collaborators.

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21. Gorbunova told NPR that bowheads maintain their cells in ways that limit mutation accumulation.

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22. Vincent Lynch cautioned that translating findings from other species into human medicine is complicated.

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