"More than surprising." This is how the group of scientists who have investigated the causes of leukemia that has affected clams that live on the east coast of North America for decades have defined the conclusions of their study. And it seems that the bivalves spread the disease, as if it were the flu.
By analyzing the DNA of the malignant cells, the experts have found that they did not belong to the individuals suffering from cancer, but that they all came from a single clam, that is, case zero of the epidemic. Unexpectedly, cancer cells are identical, true clones, regardless of where they are collected, as the authors of the report explain in the journal Cell . It is unknown whether these cells, with a remarkable ability to survive once they leave the diseased organism, can also invade other species of mollusks.
Until now, only two other cases of cancer contagion have been documented in nature: a type of tumor transmitted through sexual contact between dogs and a facial cancer that affects the Tasmanian devil and is inoculated through bites.
