Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Clam Cancer Outbreak, Spread by One Set of Cells
There are currently three known cancers in nature. It is shocking that the third cancer known in nature occurred in clams. For the last 40 years, there have been leukemia-like disease outbreaks that have been depleting soft-shell clam populations along the United State's East cost. These outbreaks cause a significantly lowered harvest populations and job loss. The disease's cause and how it spread were unknown. It was speculated that the cause was from environmental factors, and it was spread by a virus. Researchers analyzed the cancer cell sequences and discovered that the cancer cells from different locations were the same. In one clam, they found that original cancer cell left its host and spread to another clam population. Cancers occur in an animal due to metastasis. Normally cancer cells have the same genes as the animal or person suffering from cancer, but it was found that none of the cancer cells had DNA matching the clams they were in. Instead, the cancer cells were the same as one another with the same DNA. It can be concluded that they all came from one original case of cancer in one clam. The cancer cells were being transmitted, not the virus. In water, the cancer cells can only live a few hours; however, this is more than enough time to infect other clams. Cancers normally do not spread in the same way as the clam since the cancer cell must leave the host, live long enough to enter another, and then it must still overcome the immune system's foreign rejection process. This cancer process may explain how cancers spread within the body from one organ to another.
There is warning to stop eating clams or swimming since the human immune system would block the cancer cells from clams. I thought this article was pretty unique. I never thought about cancer occurring in animals. This case is interesting, and it could also correlate to the process of cancer cells transferring in the human body since it travels through the water to get to the clam. My only is question is how come the other clam does not reject the cancer cell, but humans would reject the clam's cancer cell?
Original Link: Link1
Supplemental Link: Link2
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