Abstract
The longest-lived rodent, the naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber), has a reported maximum lifespan of >30 years and exhibits delayed and/or attenuated age-associated physiological declines. We questioned whether these mouse-sized, eusocial rodents conform to Gompertzian mortality laws by experiencing an exponentially increasing risk of death as they get older. We compiled and analyzed a large compendium of historical naked mole-rat lifespan data with >3000 data points. Kaplan-Meier analyses revealed a substantial portion of the population to have survived at 30 years of age. Moreover, unlike all other mammals studied to date, and regardless of sex or breeding-status, the age-specific hazard of mortality did not increase with age, even at ages 25-fold past their time to reproductive maturity. This absence of hazard increase with age, in defiance of Gompertz's law, uniquely identifies the naked mole-rat as a non-aging mammal, confirming its status as an exceptional model for biogerontology.
Highlights
The longest-lived rodent, the naked mole-rat (Ctenohystrica, Heterocephalus glaber) is recognized as an animal model of biogerontological interest (Buffenstein, 2005; Austad, 2010; Edrey et al, 2011; de Magalhaes et al, 2007a) with a maximal lifespan of more than 30 years in our captive care (Lewis and Buffenstein, 2016). This maximum lifespan is five-fold greater than predicted allometrically for a 40 g rodent (Edrey et al, 2011)
Reports of naked mole-rat maximal lifespan have been based on observation time, not mortality
Right-censorship was applied in three cases: if the animal was (1) transferred to another collection, with the date of transfer considered as the censorship event; (2) euthanized for research purposes when still healthy, with the date of sacrifice as the censorship event; or (3) still alive when the process of compiling records was completed, with the date of completion as the censorship event
Summary
The longest-lived rodent, the naked mole-rat (Ctenohystrica, Heterocephalus glaber) is recognized as an animal model of biogerontological interest (Buffenstein, 2005; Austad, 2010; Edrey et al, 2011; de Magalhaes et al, 2007a) with a maximal lifespan of more than 30 years in our captive care (Lewis and Buffenstein, 2016). Laboratory mice, cosseted in a protected environment with ad libitum resources, live almost an order of magnitude longer than their wild counterparts These small mammals live only half as long as expected on the basis on body size and lifespan is limited by age-related, exponentially increasing intrinsic risk of dying (Miller et al, 2002). What determines naked mole-rat lifespans in captivity is currently unknown
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