In Other Animals
Transmissible cancer, caused by a clone of malignant cells rather than a virus, is extremely rare. The only other known types are canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT), which is passed between dogs via sexual activity and has been known to science for about 100 years, and contagious reticulum cell sarcoma of the Syrian hamster, which can be transmitted from one Syrian hamster to another by means of the bite of the mosquito Aedes aegypti. CTVT mutes the expression of the immune response, whereas the Syrian hamster disease spreads due to lack of genetic diversity. The mutation of devil facial tumour disease may mean that it could spread to other related species, like the quoll.
Read more about this topic: Devil Facial Tumour Disease
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“The vast results obtained by Science are won by no mystical faculties, by no mental processes other than those which are practiced by every one of us, in the humblest and meanest affairs of life. A detective policeman discovers a burglar from the marks made by his shoe, by a mental process identical with that by which Cuvier restored the extinct animals of Montmartre from fragments of their bones.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)