Medicine

Cancer is in the case of bivalve molluscs contagious

Certain clams can be a leukemia-like tumor to other shells. Even across Species, the contagion is possible. Similar paths of Infection there is in mammals only rarely.

One of the three studied species, the common Cockle was

A research team led by microbiologists and immunologists, Michael Metzger of Columbia University in New York has found that a leukemia-like cancer can be in the case of bivalve molluscs from one animal to the other.

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The results were at 22. June 2016 in the journal Nature, published. You show a remarkable ability of tumors to their own Survival and their dissemination to ensure that the scientists write.

The researchers examined three types of clams to be more precise: a mussel species (Mytilus trossulus), the common Cockle (Cerastoderma edule) and the Golden carpet shell (politi tapes aureus).

The mussels of cancer were ill, they had changed the cells in your circulatory system. The Hemolymph is a mixture of blood cells and lymphatic fluid of the affected animals appears thickened and opaque. The cancer cells clog the tissues of the animals.

Transfer from one mussel to the next

The scientists collected in different areas in Spain and Canada, the shells of the three species, and in particular, whether an animal was sick or not. Then, they analyzed the DNA of cancer cells and the normal tissue.

In this way, they discovered that certain genetic characteristics were consistent in the changed tissue with those in the healthy tissue. However, they found in the tumors of animals with the same characteristics. This indicates that the cancer cells can be transferred between individual animals, the scientists deduced the Columbia University.

The Golden carpet shell a butcher and his Team found in the cancer cells and even the genetic signature of a different kind – that of the Dappled carpet shell (Venerupis corrugata). And, although in the case of this kind in a free country, no cancer was found.

Cancer cells find a new host

Therefore, the researchers suggest that the Spotted carpet shell has found in the course of Evolution, a way to fight the cancer. This may have changed subsequently to any other type. “Our Experiments suggest that the Transmission of cancer infectious cells is a widespread phenomenon in the marine environment,” the researchers write.

Life as a mussel is not harmless. You can easily infect others with clam leukemia.

So far, the Transfer of tumors between species is considered to be the exception. A total of only eight contagious cancer lines on animals were known: in dogs, two to the Tasmanian devil – a marsupial and five in four species of bivalve molluscs.

The potential of cancer cells, to be free-living, infectious agents, raising the question of what this means for the contagion of cancer in humans, writes Elizabeth Murchison of the University of Cambridge (UK) in a comment to the article. So far so a Transmission from human to human in rare cases, for example, after organ transplants or in pregnancy had been observed.

Infections more and more in the focus of cancer research

It is a single but in each cases, the two people were also never about the parties. Nevertheless, the risk of cancer is inborn “in multicellular organisms.” The “basic evolutionary drive of this disease,” respect “no individual limits and not even Species boundaries,” says Murchison.

In the past decades, the question of the extent to which tumors are triggered by infections is increasingly in the focus of medical research. Individual cancer types may not only be caused by a Transfer of cells, but also, for example by bacteria or viruses.

For example, an infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori can lead to stomach ulcers and stomach cancer. The Hepatitis-B or Hepatitis-C viruses for liver cancer.

dpa/fs/cb