11000 Years Old Contagious Cancer Still Alive!

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4 years ago (Last updated: 1 year ago)

About 11000 years ago, a dog got a tumour. One cell from that tumour became especially dangerous. It could leave its host organism (the dog) to infect another dog so it, too, grew cancer. And then the cell jumped again, infecting another dog, and that could be repeated endlessly. This cancer is still spread among dogs by sex or close contact.

The dogs die on the way, but the very same cancer is still alive after 11000 years! It is called CTVT, canine transmissible venereal tumour, or sometimes Sticker's sarcoma. It is a parasite, today present in the population of dogs on all continents. It is not only the oldest known cancer, it is also the oldest known somatic cell lineage.

Studies conducted at the University of Cambridge indicate that these cancers sometimes pick up new mitochondria from their hosts and that it would have happened 5 times – although nobody knows exactly how this happens. Thus there are 5 distinguishable lineages of CTVT.

While CTVT is about 11000 years old, none of the lineages are more than 1700 years old. These lineages reveal something about the history of dogs, which, hardly surprising, reflects the history of humankind. The cancer of dogs spread with human travelling. For example, one lineage of CTVT, widespread over the Eurasian continent, reached the Americas with the European colonisation of the Western Hemisphere.

Studies of contagious cancers might give us valuable knowledge of other cancers as well. But it also raises an interesting question about human cancers. Although scientific mainstream today holds that no human cancer is contagious (if we do not count the cancer spread or triggered by Human Papilloma Virus, but that is an entirely different mechanism), is this really true? And if it is, is there a risk that contagious human cancer suddenly develops in the future?

Whatever the answer to the first question, and I do have my doubts about the mainstream view, there is absolutely no reason to believe it impossible that a human cancer at any time in the future develops this ability to “jump”.

Copyright © 2020 Meleonymica/Mictorrani. All Rights Reserved.

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4 years ago (Last updated: 1 year ago)

Comments

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4 years ago

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4 years ago

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4 years ago

It is difficult to give an opinion, for I would say that people or animals are born with cells that are available to develop cancer, genetically they are predisposed to suffer the disease.

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4 years ago

They are predisposed to cancer in the sense that nobody is immune. Every normal cell has he potential to be transformed to a cancer cell.

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4 years ago

I am much go with the line age of an DNA, since cancer cell is keep on tracking through generation by generation.

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4 years ago

Yes it is going with the DNA. But it can also be transferred via sex.

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4 years ago

This is really disturbing and sad 😭💔

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4 years ago

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4 years ago