Skip to content
Open access · CC-BY via OpenAlex

Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age

J. Graham Ruby, Megan Smith, Rochelle Buffenstein

eLife · 2018 · ▲ 264 citations

Abstract

, 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.

◌ CITATION ONLY
Full text is not openly licensed for redistribution here. Read it at the source:

Read at source →

Provenance

Source
OpenAlex
DOI
10.7554/elife.31157
Canonical
link ↗
Fetched
2026-10-18 MST

Cite this

APA
Ruby, J.G., Smith, M., &amp; Buffenstein, R. (2018). Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age. <em>eLife</em>. https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.31157
Vancouver
Ruby JG, Smith M, Buffenstein R. Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age. eLife. 2018. doi:10.7554/elife.31157.
BibTeX
@article{j2018Nakedm, title = {Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age}, author = {J. Graham Ruby and Megan Smith and Rochelle Buffenstein}, journal = {eLife}, year = {2018}, doi = {10.7554/elife.31157}, }

Research neighborhood

References, citing works, and semantically nearest findings. Click a node to open it.

Related findings