Alicia L. Bruzos: Con­ta­gious can­cers and their spread among mar­ine bi­valves

Abstract:

Trans­miss­ible can­cers, also known as con­ta­gious can­cers, were first ob­served in dogs and Tas­manian dev­ils, but have re­cently been dis­covered in at least ten bi­valve spe­cies, such as cockles, clams and mus­sels. These dis­eases spread when live can­cer cells are trans­mit­ted from in­fec­ted bi­valves to healthy in­di­vidu­als, in which they then mul­tiply and form new tu­mours. In bi­valves, the can­cer de­vel­ops in their hemo­cytes, blood-like cells, and is called hemic neo­plasia. These bi­valve leuk­emias be­have like meta­static cells, leav­ing their hosts to spread in the mar­ine en­vir­on­ment un­til they reach a new host and propag­ate in­side it. For this reason, they rep­res­ent an in­ter­est­ing and unique model to il­lu­min­ate in­sights into the gen­eral mech­an­isms of can­cer de­vel­op­ment and meta­stasis. In my talk, I will present an over­view and latest find­ings of my re­search on con­ta­gious can­cers in mar­ine cockles and clams.