How are Dogs Similar to Tasmanian Devils?

[BillT]

Answer: They can both get cancers from cancerous cells they get from other animals that have the cancer.

Editor summary from Science magazine:

Breaking Tumor Dogma

Canine transmissible venereal tumor (CTVT) is an unusual form of cancer because the infectious agent is not a virus or bacterium but the tumor cells themselves, which are passed from one dog to another during coitus. To explore the molecular features of the tumor and its possible origins, Murchison et al. (p. 437; see the Perspective by Parker and Ostrander) sequenced the genomes of two CTVTs and their host dogs, one from Australia and one from Brazil. Although CTVT has acquired a massive number of genomic alterations, including hundreds of times more somatic mutations than are normally found in human cancers, the tumor cell genome has remained diploid and stable. Indeed, CTVT may first have arisen in a dog that lived more than 10,000 years ago.

Tasmanian Devils are at risk of going extinct from an extremely virulent face cancer that they spread but biting each other on the face when they fight. It seems that they do this a lot. This one has been known for a few years.

[PaulineMi]

I saw a nature show on TV a few years back that was about that awful face cancer in the Tasmanian devils. Very large, disfiguring tumors on their faces. Sad.

[BillT]

I think that a small uninfected population of tasmanian devils have been isolated somewhere so try and keep them from going extinct.

The cells getting into a different body and causing problems is somewhat like the underlying concept of The Thing movie (Carpenter version) which comes from the Uber Classic science fiction story "Who goes there?". Of course these cells were from a different species and turned people into monsters rather than transmitting cancer.

[Mugwump]

I think that a small uninfected population of tasmanian devils have been isolated somewhere so try and keep them from going extinct.

The cells getting into a different body and causing problems is somewhat like the underlying concept of The Thing movie (Carpenter version) which comes from the Uber Classic science fiction story "Who goes there?". Of course these cells were from a different species and turned people into monsters rather than transmitting cancer.

oooh..like a werewolf or vampire...??