CTVT--Can a tumor become a new life form?, page 1

posted on Dec, 23 2006 @ 05:09 AM

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This is old news, but I think it's important.

Riddle of infectious dog cancer solved - New Scientist
A mysterious contagious cancer which plagues dogs throughout the world may be the first truly transmittable cancer known, a new study suggests.

The cancer cells themselves move directly from dog to dog, acting “parasitically” on each infected animal, the researchers say.

Canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT) spreads between dogs through sex or other forms of contact, such as licking and biting, they believe.

The same cancer appears to infect dogs throughout the world and probably originated from a cancer in a single wolf, or a dog closely related to a wolf, which lived between 250 and 1000 years ago, the researchers say.

Direct descendents
Previously, viruses were suspected of spreading CTVT in the same way that the human papilloma virus – found in genital warts – spreads cervical cancer to women through sex.

But a new genetic analysis shows that the dog cancer cells are direct descendents of tumour cells from the long-dead animal in which the disease originated.

“The cancer escaped its original body and became a parasite transmitted from dog to bitch and bitch to dog until it had colonised all over the world,” says lead researcher Robin Weiss at University College London in the UK.

“The idea that this is caused by transfer of the cancer cells themselves, not a cancer-causing virus, has been around for 30 years,” says Weiss. “Now we’ve proved it through forensic DNA analysis.”

Weiss said that the discovery makes the cancer, otherwise known as Sticker’s sarcoma, “the oldest cancer known to science”, and possibly the world’s longest-lived colony of cloned mammalian cells.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

So, is it a new species? I think it is. These cells have been replicating for longer than the HeLa cells, and they weren't produced in a lab, and don't require laboratory conditions to live, and Leigh Van Valen wrote a paper on how the HeLa cells ought to be considered a new species. CTVT certainly has far more life-qualities to be considered life than the HeLa cells.

On top of that, CTVT has actually been evolving this entire time. The population of CTVT is not homogeneous, but is quite genetically diverse, but their ancestry is as clear as day.

Just think how freaky cool it is to have an organism with the same genes as a dog that could be considered not just a new species, but to have crossed a whole phylum--nay, something more than phylum, but I'm not sure what that new taxonomy would be called. The new species would likely be in a new phylum because it's not all that comparable to anything else within the Chordata phylum (the phylum for all vertebrates, and many invertebrates).

[edit on 12/23/2006 by supercheetah]

Thain Esh Kelch

posted on Dec, 23 2006 @ 08:46 PM

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Well, theoretically it is possible for them to become a species of themselves, buuuut... In reality, I dont believe so.

I find it weird that the cells arent resisted in the new body, within days. And the fact that it should be such a great survivor that it can infect all around the globe, in several species just by being bit? Remember, cancer-cells need a good amount of blood-suply which just isnt there most of the time where dogs are bitten.

infinite8

posted on Dec, 23 2006 @ 08:53 PM

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Can a human get this from being bitten or licked by a dog? or God forbid, through sex?

supercheetah

posted on Dec, 23 2006 @ 09:19 PM

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Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch
Well, theoretically it is possible for them to become a species of themselves, buuuut... In reality, I dont believe so.

I find it weird that the cells arent resisted in the new body, within days. And the fact that it should be such a great survivor that it can infect all around the globe, in several species just by being bit? Remember, cancer-cells need a good amount of blood-suply which just isnt there most of the time where dogs are bitten.

That's part of the success of this contagion. Another article talks about this very question:

A Dead Dog Lives On (Inside New Dogs)
The scientists found that the Sticker sarcoma cells make very few of the surface proteins that vertebrates use to distinguish self from non-self. It appears that the tumor cells can avoid an all-out attack from the immune system. Instead, the immune system reins in the cancer cells, which can survive in the dogs even after their tumor disappears.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Originally posted by infinite8
Can a human get this from being bitten or licked by a dog? or God forbid, through sex?

Thankfully, that hasn't happened yet, and is, for now, rather unlikely, but it's not completely unlikely. The possibility that this contagion could evolve to cross-infect humans is a quite real possibility.

Thain Esh Kelch

posted on Dec, 23 2006 @ 11:31 PM

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Originally posted by supercheetah

Originally posted by Thain Esh Kelch
snap...

That's part of the success of this contagion. Another article talks about this very question:

A Dead Dog Lives On (Inside New Dogs)
The scientists found that the Sticker sarcoma cells make very few of the surface proteins that vertebrates use to distinguish self from non-self. It appears that the tumor cells can avoid an all-out attack from the immune system. Instead, the immune system reins in the cancer cells, which can survive in the dogs even after their tumor disappears.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Originally posted by infinite8
Can a human get this from being bitten or licked by a dog? or God forbid, through sex?
Thankfully, that hasn't happened yet, and is, for now, rather unlikely, but it's not completely unlikely. The possibility that this contagion could evolve to cross-infect humans is a quite real possibility.

Thanks for the headsup. Interesting, and it makes sense. Man, it really makes me wanna get that immunology course in university...

Originally posted by infinite8
Can a human get this from being bitten or licked by a dog? or God forbid, through sex?

Well, if it really is as described above, I see no reason as to why we can't get 'infected'. Actually, I see it as a major health-risc. Fortunately most people dont run around biting each other, so its a low risc. I would not expect these cells to be sexually transfered, since cancer cells that move around in the body use the blood vessel..

AMANNAMEDQUEST

posted on Dec, 24 2006 @ 12:47 AM

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Sorry this is kinda different than CTVT, but on a program a long time ago I saw that a person had stomach pains and it turns out it was a tumor. But the tumor was a mouth that was fully formed and would bite (it wasn't a undeveloped twin). I remember them sayin tumors like this try to replicate the host. I will have to do some research on this. Ill post anything I find.