A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond
Infectious agents come in many forms, but they have been grouped into five distinct classes of agents: viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, and prions. Cancer is not normally on this list. Infectious agents like Human papilloma virus (HPV) or Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) can cause canc...
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ftdatacite:10.7916/d83n23z2 2023-05-15T15:50:50+02:00 A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond Metzger, Michael Goff, Stephen P. 2016 https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d83n23z2 https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D83N23Z2 unknown Columbia University https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005904 Parasites--Evolution Cancer Immunologic diseases Epidemiology Text Articles article-journal ScholarlyArticle 2016 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.7916/d83n23z2 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005904 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z Infectious agents come in many forms, but they have been grouped into five distinct classes of agents: viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, and prions. Cancer is not normally on this list. Infectious agents like Human papilloma virus (HPV) or Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) can cause cancers in infected hosts, but these cancers are generated within each new individual from oncogenic changes within the hosts’ own cells, and they stay within that individual. If cancer cells did travel from one individual to another, a normal immune system would be able to recognize them as foreign and reject them. Cancer is thus usually a self-limiting disease—it either regresses or it kills its host, and the death of the host marks the death of the cancer lineage. But this is not always the case. Transmissible cancers have been identified as spreading within two vertebrates, dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii), and more recently, multiple independent lineages of transmissible cancer have been found in four species of bivalves (Fig 1). This is an infectious modality that has significant effects on animals in both the terrestrial and marine environments, as well as in both vertebrates and invertebrates. While large-scale transmission of cancer has not been observed in humans, transmission between humans has been observed on a small scale in a number of circumstances, often in the context of immune suppression. With more research, more cases are likely to be found in humans as well as other animals. Text Canis lupus DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
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Parasites--Evolution Cancer Immunologic diseases Epidemiology |
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Parasites--Evolution Cancer Immunologic diseases Epidemiology Metzger, Michael Goff, Stephen P. A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond |
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Parasites--Evolution Cancer Immunologic diseases Epidemiology |
description |
Infectious agents come in many forms, but they have been grouped into five distinct classes of agents: viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, and prions. Cancer is not normally on this list. Infectious agents like Human papilloma virus (HPV) or Human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) can cause cancers in infected hosts, but these cancers are generated within each new individual from oncogenic changes within the hosts’ own cells, and they stay within that individual. If cancer cells did travel from one individual to another, a normal immune system would be able to recognize them as foreign and reject them. Cancer is thus usually a self-limiting disease—it either regresses or it kills its host, and the death of the host marks the death of the cancer lineage. But this is not always the case. Transmissible cancers have been identified as spreading within two vertebrates, dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii), and more recently, multiple independent lineages of transmissible cancer have been found in four species of bivalves (Fig 1). This is an infectious modality that has significant effects on animals in both the terrestrial and marine environments, as well as in both vertebrates and invertebrates. While large-scale transmission of cancer has not been observed in humans, transmission between humans has been observed on a small scale in a number of circumstances, often in the context of immune suppression. With more research, more cases are likely to be found in humans as well as other animals. |
format |
Text |
author |
Metzger, Michael Goff, Stephen P. |
author_facet |
Metzger, Michael Goff, Stephen P. |
author_sort |
Metzger, Michael |
title |
A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond |
title_short |
A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond |
title_full |
A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond |
title_fullStr |
A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond |
title_full_unstemmed |
A Sixth Modality of Infectious Disease: Contagious Cancer from Devils to Clams and Beyond |
title_sort |
sixth modality of infectious disease: contagious cancer from devils to clams and beyond |
publisher |
Columbia University |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.7916/d83n23z2 https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D83N23Z2 |
genre |
Canis lupus |
genre_facet |
Canis lupus |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005904 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7916/d83n23z2 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1005904 |
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1766385850229194752 |