Scientists have found the “immortal” cancer culture age in 10,000 years

Scientists have found that under certain conditions, cancer can survive for tens of thousands of years, despite the accumulation of mutations in two million.

British and American biologists have found the body of dogs distinctive culture “contagious” cancer cells, whose age exceeds 11,000 years, making them the oldest “body” in the world, according to an article published in the journal Science .

“Genome of these cells has shown us that, under certain conditions, cancer can survive for tens of thousands of years, despite the accumulation of mutations in two million. These cells spent most of their” life “in an isolated group of dogs and spread across the world only in the last 500 years together Dogs, which people took with them during the era of great geographical discoveries, “- said Elizabeth Murchison from Cambridge University (UK).

Murchison and her colleagues discovered this amazing type of cancer by studying one of the common diseases of dogs – an infectious venereal sarcoma (CTVT). This malignant tumor cells which are infected dogs during mating or through close contact with each other, which can disappear from the body within a few months.

It was opened in 1876 by Russian veterinarian Mstislav Novinsky and in subsequent years, scientists have repeatedly suggested that all known CTVT lines have been around for hundreds of years. Group Murchison confirmed this view, calculate the exact “age” and found progenitor cells sarcoma.

The authors have decoded the DNA of two strains CTVT, whose cells were extracted from the body of the Australian pooch and cocker spaniel from Brazil, and compared them with each other. It appeared that the culture of cancer were very close to each other and descended from a common “ancestor”.

Biologists have tried to find it by comparing the DNA of cancer cells with the genomes of more than a thousand dogs living in different corners of the world. It turned out that grandparent CTVT culture appeared about 11,000 years ago, before the advent of all dog breeds, and its support was like a Siberian husky or Alaskan Malamute.