TY - JOUR
T1 - Natural resistance to cancers
T2 - a Darwinian hypothesis to explain Peto's paradox
AU - Roche, Benjamin
AU - Hochberg, Michael E.
AU - Caulin, Aleah F.
AU - Maley, Carlo C.
AU - Gatenby, Robert A.
AU - Misse, Dorothée
AU - Thomas, Frédéric
N1 - Funding Information:
This work is a contribution from the “Centre de Recherche Ecologique et Evolutive sur le Cancer” (CREEC) and the PEPii program funded by the CNRS.
PY - 2012/9/3
Y1 - 2012/9/3
N2 - Background: Peto's paradox stipulates that there is no association between body mass (a surrogate of number of cells and longevity) and cancer prevalence in wildlife species. Resolving this paradox is a very promising research direction to understand mechanisms of cancer resistance. As of present, research has been focused on the consequences of these evolutionary pressures rather than of their causes.Discussion: Here, we argue that evolution through natural selection may have shaped mechanisms of cancer resistance in wildlife species and that this can result in a threshold in body mass above which oncogenic and tumor suppressive mechanisms should be increasingly purified and positively selected, respectively.Summary: We conclude that assessing wildlife species in their natural ecosystems, especially through theoretical modeling, is the most promising way to understand how evolutionary processes can favor one or the other pathway. This will provide important insights into mechanisms of cancer resistance.
AB - Background: Peto's paradox stipulates that there is no association between body mass (a surrogate of number of cells and longevity) and cancer prevalence in wildlife species. Resolving this paradox is a very promising research direction to understand mechanisms of cancer resistance. As of present, research has been focused on the consequences of these evolutionary pressures rather than of their causes.Discussion: Here, we argue that evolution through natural selection may have shaped mechanisms of cancer resistance in wildlife species and that this can result in a threshold in body mass above which oncogenic and tumor suppressive mechanisms should be increasingly purified and positively selected, respectively.Summary: We conclude that assessing wildlife species in their natural ecosystems, especially through theoretical modeling, is the most promising way to understand how evolutionary processes can favor one or the other pathway. This will provide important insights into mechanisms of cancer resistance.
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U2 - 10.1186/1471-2407-12-387
DO - 10.1186/1471-2407-12-387
M3 - Article
C2 - 22943484
AN - SCOPUS:84868340054
SN - 1471-2407
VL - 12
JO - BMC Cancer
JF - BMC Cancer
M1 - 387
ER -