Department of Marine Ecosystems Functioning, Institute of Oceanography, Faculty of Oceanography and Geography, University of Gdańsk, Gdynia, Poland.
Pacific Northwest Research Institute, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Mol Ecol. 2022 Jun;31(11):3128-3136. doi: 10.1111/mec.16464. Epub 2022 Apr 21.
Disseminated neoplasia (DN) is one of the most challenging and unrecognised diseases occurring in aquatic fauna. It has been diagnosed in four bivalve species from the Gulf of Gdańsk (Southern Baltic Sea) with the highest frequency in Macoma balthica (formerly Limecola balthica), reaching up to 94% in some populations. The aetiology of DN in the Baltic Sea has not yet been identified, with earlier studies trying to link its occurrence with environmental pollution. Taking into account recent research providing evidence that DN is horizontally transmitted as clonal cells between individuals in some bivalve species, we aimed to test whether DN is a bivalve transmissible neoplasia (BTN) in the population of M. balthica from the Gulf of Gdańsk highly affected with cancer. We examined mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (mtCOI) and elongation factor 1α (EF1α) sequences of genomes obtained from haemolymph and tissues of neoplastic and healthy individuals. Sequence analysis resulted in detection of an independent transmissible cancer lineage occurring in four neoplastic clams that is not present in healthy animals. This study describes the first case of BTN in the clam M. balthica (MbaBTN), providing further insights for studies on this disease.
弥散性肿瘤（DN）是水生动物中最具挑战性和最容易被忽视的疾病之一。在加里宁格勒湾（波罗的海南部）的四种双壳类物种中已经诊断出这种疾病，其中贻贝（Macoma balthica，以前称为 Limecola balthica）的发病率最高，在某些种群中高达 94%。波罗的海 DN 的病因尚未确定，早期研究试图将其发病与环境污染联系起来。考虑到最近的研究提供了证据，表明 DN 是某些双壳类物种个体之间以克隆细胞水平传播的，我们旨在测试 DN 是否是受癌症高度影响的加里宁格勒湾贻贝种群中的一种双壳类可传播肿瘤（BTN）。我们检测了来自肿瘤和健康个体血液和组织的基因组中线粒体细胞色素 c 氧化酶 I（mtCOI）和延伸因子 1α（EF1α）序列。序列分析结果表明，在四个患有肿瘤的贻贝中检测到了一种独立的可传播癌症谱系，而在健康动物中不存在这种谱系。本研究描述了贻贝（MbaBTN）中首例 BTN，为该疾病的研究提供了进一步的见解。
