Five of seven genes in the two regions were related to cancer or immune function in other mammals, the scientists reported in Nature Communications.
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This file picture taken on January 13, 2015 shows a Tasmanian Devil named Conrad looking out from inside his enclosure at the San Diego Zoo, California.
Tasmanian devils are evolving genetic resistance to a contagious and deadly cancer that’s been pushing the endangered species to the brink of extinction, an global team of scientists has found.
Tasmanian devils are the largest carnivorous marsupials in the world and an integral part of Australia’s natural heritage. There have been localized population declines of more than 90% and an overall species decline of more than 80% within the last two decades.
First detected in 1996, devil facial tumour disease is one of just three transmissible cancers seen outside the laboratory. The research team believes the recurring mutations they found may speed up the devils’ immune response to introduced cancer cells from another animal. He said the team was growing the tumour cells in the lab and were editing their genome to examine the influence of the genes on their growth. Yet there might still be hope seeing how some devils survived.
They are hopeful that disease free devils with the apparently DFTD resistant DNA can be bred to enhance the genetic diversity of an off-island captive insurance population in case devil reintroductions are needed in the future.
Devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), a almost 100 percent fatal cancer first detected 20 years ago, has wiped out an estimated 80 percent of the Australian marsupials, according to a news release from Washington State University. Australia’s rabbit population quickly developed resistance to myxomatosis, a fatal viral infection.
Because most of the tumors in DFTD are genetically similar-National Geographic described it as though “every infected devil has in effect received a tissue transplant from the original cancerous devil”-it’s kind of like studying “one very long-lived human tumor in a single individual”, Andrew Storfer, a biologist at Washington State University and co-author of the paper, said in the press conference”.
Evolution within a species through the acquisition of lasting and beneficial genetic traits in response to factors such as environment or disease, is generally thought to be a long, slow process. “This will require functional data to confirm”. It’s only one of three transmissible cancers known to man, but also one of the most unforgiving killing nearly all of its victims.
By comparison, canine transmissible venereal tumor, a sexually transmitted form of cancer that only affects dogs, has been around for at least 11,000 years and is generally not fatal to domesticated animals.
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Cancer is something we humans can’t catch from one another.
