# Transmissible cancers, are they more common than thought?

Beata Ujvari, Robert Gatenby, Frédéric Thomas

► To cite this version:

Beata Ujvari, Robert Gatenby, Frédéric Thomas. Transmissible cancers, are they more common than thought?. Evolutionary Applications, 2016, 9 (5), pp.633-634. 10.1111/eva.12372. hal-02505301

HAL Id: hal-02505301

https://hal.umontpellier.fr/hal-02505301

Submitted on 11 Mar 2020

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## Are transmissible cancers rare?

We propose that the emergence of transmissible cancers requires a ‘perfect storm’ with the rare confluence of multiple host and tumour cell traits (Ujvari et al. 2016). At least four key factors are required: (i) shedding of tumour cells from the affected host, (ii) survival of tumour cells during the host–host transit, (iii) a permissive environment facilitating invasion and (iv) adaptation to novel habitats and evasion of immune attacks in the foreign host. While this rare confluence of traits explains the rarity of tumour cell transmission, it also suggests that when it eventuates, multiple emergences can theoretically happen as long as the favourable window persists. It is possible that during the eons of evolution, several contagious cancers have evolved, but due to their detrimental impact on host fitness, selection has eliminated them, as well as they might have driven their hosts to extinctions. Consequently, it is conceivable that due to our limited perception of the evolutionary timescale, we fail to recognize extinct contagious cancers and hence erroneously identify them to be rare.

## Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the ANR (Blanc project EVO-CAN) and by the CNRS (INEE).

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