Functional characterization of the store-operated calcium entry pathway in naked mole-rat cells

Abstract

Naked mole-rats (NMRs, Heterocephalus glaber) are highly unusual rodents exhibiting remarkable adaptations to their subterranean habitat and resistance to developing various age-related diseases such as those related to abnormal cell proliferation or cancer, neurodegeneration and inflammation. In other rodents, as well as humans, a ubiquitous Ca2+ influx pathway, namely the store-operated Ca2+ entry (SOCE), has been implicated in all these diseases. SOCE is triggered by intracellular Ca2+ store depletion resulting in interaction of Stim proteins with Orai proteins, the putative homologues of which appear to be present in the NMR genome, but no functional characterization of SOCE in NMRs has yet been conducted. In this study, we provide the first functional and pharmacological characterization of SOCE in NMR using both excitable and non-excitable cells.