The researchers have now found that the second cancer causes tumors on the face that are outwardly indistinguishable from the previously-discovered cancer. This is the second type of contagious cancer discovered that affects Tasmanian devils, and it represents itself with physical symptoms and lesions indistinguishable from the other cancer type’s lesions.
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This lead to scientists believing that such a transfer of living cancer cells was rare.
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Researchers say it raises questions about the current level of understanding when it comes to cancers that can spread between individuals. Now another “contagious” cancer has been found. Sometimes, it spreads and invades other parts of the body in a process known as “metastasis”. However, cancers do not usually survive beyond the body of the host from whose cells they originally derived. In dogs, Canine transmissible venereal tumor is sexually transmitted to other dogs or canines. They can make the leap from one individual to another – typically through close contact behaviours – and infect new hosts.
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In 1996, researchers observed Tasmanian devils in the north-east of the island with tumours affecting the face and mouth and soon it was discovered that these tumours were contagious between devils, and are spread by biting.
Tasmanian devils are iconic marsupial carnivores that are only found in the wild on the Australian island state of Tasmania.
However, DFT2 is genetically distinct from DFT1. This strain, which carries different chromosomal rearrangements, has now been confirmed in eight devil specimens. Contagious cancers have also been found among soft-shelled clams and dogs. Contagious tumours aren’t as rare as previously assumed.
“Until now, we’ve always thought that transmissible cancers arise extremely rarely in nature, but this new discovery makes us question this belief”, Dr. Elizabeth Murchison, senior author of a new study from the University of Cambridge, explained in the university’s news release.
Previous research suggested that the cancer, which is called devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), originated from a genetic mutation in nerve cells in a single, female Tasmanian devil. Researchers say extinction of devils is possible unless officials can find a way to eradicate the disease. “Maybe transmissible cancers are more common than we believe”.
The possibility that clonally transmissible cancers may arise more frequently in nature than previously considered warrants further investigation of the risk that such diseases could arise in humans.
There are, however, rare cases of transmittable cancers.
So humans are largely immune from naturally occurring transmissible cancers.
Tasmanian devils are endangered, with many wiped out by a transmissible cancer discovered in the mid-1990s.
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‘The potential for new transmissible cancers to emerge in this species has important implications for Tasmanian devil conservation programmes’.
