Kapsetaki Stefania E, Basile Anthony J, Compton Zachary T, Rupp Shawn M, Duke Elizabeth G, Boddy Amy M, Harrison Tara M, Sweazea Karen L, Maley Carlo C
Arizona Cancer Evolution Center, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Nat Commun. 2025 Mar 12;16(1):2271. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-57344-1.
Birds have higher plasma glucose concentrations but lower cancer prevalence than other vertebrates. However, this inverse relationship between glucose and cancer may not hold within vertebrate groups. Given that diet affects blood sugar levels, and carnivores have higher cancer risk than herbivores, we also examined whether diet correlates with plasma glucose concentrations. We collected diet, mean plasma glucose concentration, and neoplasia data for up to 273 vertebrate species from existing databases. Across vertebrates, mean plasma glucose concentration negatively correlated with cancer prevalence, but that was mostly driven by differences in mean plasma glucose concentration and cancer prevalence between birds, mammals, and reptiles. Mean plasma glucose concentration was not correlated with diet across vertebrates nor with cancer prevalence within birds, mammals, or reptiles. Primary carnivores had higher neoplasia prevalence than herbivores when controlling for domestication. A hypothetical explanation for our results may be the evolutionary loss or downregulation of genes related to insulin-mediated glucose import in bird cells. This may have led to higher mean plasma glucose concentration, lower intracellular glucose concentrations in the form of glycogen, and production of fewer reactive oxygen species and inflammatory cytokines, potentially contributing to lower neoplasia prevalence in extant birds compared to mammals and reptiles.
与其他脊椎动物相比，鸟类的血浆葡萄糖浓度更高，但癌症患病率更低。然而，葡萄糖与癌症之间的这种反比关系在脊椎动物群体中可能并不成立。鉴于饮食会影响血糖水平，且食肉动物比食草动物患癌风险更高，我们还研究了饮食是否与血浆葡萄糖浓度相关。我们从现有数据库中收集了多达273种脊椎动物的饮食、平均血浆葡萄糖浓度和肿瘤形成数据。在整个脊椎动物中，平均血浆葡萄糖浓度与癌症患病率呈负相关，但这主要是由鸟类、哺乳动物和爬行动物之间平均血浆葡萄糖浓度和癌症患病率的差异驱动的。整个脊椎动物的平均血浆葡萄糖浓度与饮食无关，在鸟类、哺乳动物或爬行动物内部也与癌症患病率无关。在控制驯化因素后，初级食肉动物的肿瘤形成患病率高于食草动物。对我们研究结果的一个假设性解释可能是鸟类细胞中与胰岛素介导的葡萄糖导入相关的基因发生了进化性丢失或下调。这可能导致了更高的平均血浆葡萄糖浓度、以糖原形式存在的更低细胞内葡萄糖浓度，以及更少的活性氧物质和炎性细胞因子的产生，这可能是现存鸟类与哺乳动物和爬行动物相比肿瘤形成患病率更低的原因。
