Sometimes one word says it all. Case in point: Bats. This week At the Lab, we hear from LaboratoryProfessor W. Richard McCombie about the curious origin story behind a recent study his lab conducted with Professor Adam Siepel, postdoc Armin Scheben, and the American Museum of Natural History.
Read the related story: Holy immunity! Bat genes key against COVID, cancer
Transcript
Nick Wurm: You鈥檙e now At the Lab with 麻豆传媒社区. My name is Nick Wurm. And this week At the Lab, 鈥淏ats!鈥�
{Bats shriek and flap their wings.}
NW: Imagine somebody walked up to you and said that one word: bats.
NW: Now, you don鈥檛 really have to imagine much. That鈥檚 the actual origin story of a recent Cold Spring Harbor discovery. Here鈥檚 LaboratoryProfessor Dick McCombie.
Dick McCombie: A student from a course we鈥檝e been teaching since 1995 and who works at the American Museum of Natural History was collaborating with someone in my lab. She was visiting, and I always kid around with her. And I was pretty psyched up about bats at the time. And I pointed at her and said bats! And she said, 鈥淒ick, what the hell鈥檚 wrong with you?鈥� I told her how interesting bats were. She said, 鈥淗ave you met Nancy Simmons? She鈥檚 a bat researcher at the American Museum of Natural History.鈥� She鈥檚 the one that got the bat samples from Belize.
NW: Before we get to Belize, let鈥檚 backtrack a bit. Bats: what makes them so interesting? For you and me, it might be their nocturnal habits or their appearance in popular folklore.
{A vampire laughs.}
NW: But for McCombie, it鈥檚 not their legends or lifestyles so much as their lifespans.
DM: There鈥檚 a general trend that the bigger the average body size of an animal, the longer they live. Bats are real outliers in that regard. Some species live far, far longer than would be expected based on their body size. And they apparently have a very low rate of cancer.
NW: McCombie and his colleagues wanted to find out why. Enter: the American Museum of Natural History team in Belize. They provided McCombie with DNA samples from two species of bats, the Jamaican fruit bat and Mesoamerican mustached bat.
NW: Back at 麻豆传媒社区, McCombie and his colleagues mapped the first-ever genome sequences for these two types of bats. When they compared the genomes to those of 15 other mammals, including other bats and humans, they found that the genes responsible for bats鈥� immune responses are dialed way down.
NW: As a result, their immune systems might work more quickly and precisely, lessening the amount of friendly fire on bats鈥� organs and tissues. That could help explain their longer lifespans and apparent resistance to cancer.
NW: McCombie鈥檚 colleagues hope their work will help provide new insights into the links between immunity, aging, and cancer. And to think, it all started with one word: bats
NW: Thanks for listening to bat鈥攅xcuse me鈥�At the Lab. If you like what you heard, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and visit us at cshl.edu for more stories like this one. For 麻豆传媒社区, I鈥檓 Nick Wurm. And I鈥檒l see you next time At the Lab.