The wolves living in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (CEZ) have altered immune systems and developed the ability to fight cancer, a new study has found. These animals, which are different from their counterparts outside the region, could prove to be the key in helping humans fight the deadly disease, the study further said. Humans abandoned the area after a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant exploded in 1986, causing cancer-causing radiation into the environment. A 1,000 square mile (2,590 square kilometres) area was cordoned off and people stopped from visiting.
But the wolves continued to roam around and seem to be unaffected by the chronic exposure to the radiation, according to the study presented last month at the annual meeting of the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology's Annual Meeting in the US.
It was led by Cara Love, an evolutionary biologist and ecotoxicologist in Shane Campbell-Staton's lab at Princeton University. She has been studying the wolves at the CEZ for nine years.
In 2014, Ms Love and her team went inside the CEZ and put GPS radio collars equipped with radiation dosimetres on them. They also took blood from the animals to understand their responses to the cancer-causing radiation, as mentioned in the research.
These collars helped the research team pinpoint the exact location of the wolves and determine the level of radiation they were exposed to.
As per IFL Science, the CEZ wolves were exposed to 11.28 millirem of radiation daily - more than six times the legal safety limit for humans.
The Chernobyl wolves' immune system appeared different than those in other parts of the world. The research team found that the wolves' genome have developed some resilience to cancer.
Ms Love said in a statement that they pinpointed the specific regions in the wolves' genome that showed resilience to increased cancer risk.
The researchers will now examine how similar gene mutations in humans could increase the odds of surviving cancer.
"Our priority is for people and collaborators there to be as safe as possible," said Ms Love.
Similar effects were seen on dogs living in the CEZ.
