Wolves roaming near the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine have developed protective mutations against cancer despite being regularly exposed to cancer-causing radiation.
- Scientists have collared wild wolves roaming near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.
- These collars were capable of recording their location and the radiation the wolves were exposed to.
- Scientists discovered that these wild wolves, exposed to cancer-causing radiation, developed cancer-protective mutations.
In 1986, a nuclear reactor exploded at the Chernobyl power plant in Ukraine. This nuclear disaster then leads to the evacuation of the city, due to carcinogenic radiation which is very dangerous for humans.
Wolves exposed to carcinogenic radiation
If humans have deserted the area surrounding the former nuclear power plant, this is not the case for wild animals… A subject of study taken up by Dr. Cara Love, biologist at Princeton Universityin the United States, and his team.
Specifically, they are studying the consequences of carcinogenic radiation on wild wolves roaming near the former nuclear power plant. Their findings were presented at the congress Society of Integrative and Comparative Biologywhich took place in Seattle, United States, last month.
As part of their work, in 2014, scientists installed GPS collars on these stray animals near the former Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The objective was to record their movements. These collars provide “real-time measurements of where [les loups] and in what quantity [de rayonnement] they are exposed”specifies Dr. Cara Love at Sky News. At the same time, the researchers took blood samples from the animals to understand how their bodies reacted to this carcinogenic radiation.
Protective mutations against cancer
Thus, they were able to observe that these wolves were exposed to carcinogenic radiation six times higher than the authorized limit for a human. And this had many consequences: their immune system was similar to that of cancer patients treated with radiotherapy.
Another result: the scientists also identified parts of the genetic information which have mutated and which would be resistant to the risk of cancer. These wild wolves, exposed to carcinogenic radiation, therefore developed mutations that protect against cancer.
In the future, the scientists intend to continue their work but, for the moment, the Covid-19 health crisis and then the war in Ukraine are preventing them from returning to Chernobyl.
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