Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2022 Aug;6(8):1077-1089. doi: 10.1038/s41559-022-01790-3. Epub 2022 Jul 25.
Populations of cancer cells are subject to the same core evolutionary processes as asexually reproducing, unicellular organisms. Transmissible cancers are particularly striking examples of these processes. These unusual cancers are clonal lineages that can spread through populations via physical transfer of living cancer cells from one host individual to another, and they have achieved long-term success in the colonization of at least eight different host species. Population genetic theory provides a useful framework for understanding the shift from a multicellular sexual animal into a unicellular asexual clone and its long-term effects on the genomes of these cancers. In this Review, we consider recent findings from transmissible cancer research with the goals of developing an evolutionarily informed perspective on transmissible cancers, examining possible implications for their long-term fate and identifying areas for future research on these exceptional lineages.
癌细胞群体受到与无性繁殖单细胞生物相同的核心进化过程的影响。可传播的癌症是这些过程的特别显著的例子。这些不寻常的癌症是克隆谱系，可以通过活癌细胞从一个宿主个体到另一个宿主个体的物理转移在种群中传播，并且它们在至少八个不同宿主物种的定殖中取得了长期成功。群体遗传学理论为理解从多细胞有性动物向单细胞无性克隆的转变及其对这些癌症基因组的长期影响提供了一个有用的框架。在这篇综述中，我们考虑了可传播癌症研究的最新发现，旨在从进化的角度来考虑可传播癌症，研究它们的长期命运的可能影响，并确定对这些特殊谱系的未来研究领域。
