Carpenter Syndrome: Immortal Lines of the Clonally Transmissible Cancer Change their Mortal Hosts

Clonally Transmissible Cancer (CTC) is an infectious oncological disease in which the cancer cells themselves serve as an infectious agent. An animal with CTC becomes a chimera, since the cells of its body and cancer differ in their genotypes. The CTC genotype is related to the genotype of its first animal host (in which it first appeared). The host died long ago, while its clonally dividing cancer cells continue to live like parasites. Until recently, CTC was considered a rare disease, so the hypothesis of transmissible cancer was rarely taken into account when interpreting genetic or epidemiological data. The recent discovery of multiple lineages of CTC in bivalve molluscs, including those capable of being transmitted between different species, forces the researchers to reconsider their views both on the occurrence of transmissible cancer and the scale of the associated threats. This discovery knocked the author of this article sideways, because, studying the genetics of bivalves, he had guessed about the possibilities of chimera presence, but could not find a reasonable explanation for it.

clonally transmissible cancer, transmissible neoplasia, bivalve molluscs, evolutionary biology