You all missed another transmissible
cancer which is a malignancy spread from Syrian hamster to Syrian hamster. The
vector is the Aedes aegypti mosquito. The tumor is non-viral and is transmitted
as a malignant cell explant. Reportedly, all the Syrian [golden] hamsters in
captivity originated more than 100 years ago from a single pair. Therefore all
of the domesticated hamsters are highly inbred and can apparently accept one
another’s tissues and cells. Something similar apparently happened with
Tasmanian Devils. I’m informed that genetic studies reveal that these
marsupials passed through a tight genetic bottleneck in the not so distant
past.
This can’t be true of the transmissible
canine malignancies, though, because this cancer is transmissible to entirely
separate canine species including wolves, coyotes, jackals and foxes. I’m
unaware of transmissible cancers in cheetahs but they’d be animals to watch. I
read somewhere that animals from different parts of Africa
are so immunologically similar that they can accept tissue grafts from
completely unrelated cheetahs.
-- Ron, April 9, 2015
This is more than a little big scary, because hamsters and
dogs are placental mammals, like human beings.
The above article and comment are both from this link:
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