Genomics and Computational Biology Graduate Group, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2011 Apr;26(4):175-82. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2011.01.002.
The evolution of multicellularity required the suppression of cancer. If every cell has some chance of becoming cancerous, large, long-lived organisms should have an increased risk of developing cancer compared with small, short-lived organisms. The lack of correlation between body size and cancer risk is known as Peto's paradox. Animals with 1000 times more cells than humans do not exhibit an increased cancer risk, suggesting that natural mechanisms can suppress cancer 1000 times more effectively than is done in human cells. Because cancer has proven difficult to cure, attention has turned to cancer prevention. In this review, similar to pharmaceutical companies mining natural products, we seek to understand how evolution has suppressed cancer to develop ultimately improved cancer prevention in humans.
多细胞生物的进化需要抑制癌症。如果每个细胞都有一定的癌变机会,那么与小而短命的生物相比,大型、长寿的生物应该会增加患癌症的风险。这种体型大小与癌症风险之间缺乏相关性被称为皮托悖论。细胞数量比人类多 1000 倍的动物并没有表现出更高的癌症风险,这表明自然机制可以比人类细胞更有效地抑制癌症,效果高达 1000 倍。由于癌症难以治愈,人们的注意力已经转向癌症预防。在这篇综述中,我们试图理解进化是如何抑制癌症的,就像制药公司从天然产物中挖掘一样,从而最终开发出对人类更有效的癌症预防方法。