Elephants and the TP53 gene (tumor suppressor)

I searched and saw nothing on ATS...
I found this Newsweek article interesting!



I was linked to it from a website that I frequent: www.elephants.com...
I am NOT a geneticist or a molecular biologist so, I hope I don't butcher this information too much with my thoughts and opinions.
The "cure" for Cancer, if found, is years and years away (I fear!) but, it appears that some extraordinary doctors, researchers, scientists may be on to something big...on the edge of a breakthrough.

Could animals hold the key to save the human race?
Basically the article describes work being done in Cancer research and most specifically why some species have a predisposition to contracting the big C and others don’t. In this article it specifically references certain breeds of dogs as well as whales and elephants.

Dogs are highly susceptible to cancer, with certain varieties of the disorder plaguing certain canine breeds. For example, the shaggy Bernese mountain dog is routinely felled by histiocytic sarcoma, while the puffy chow chow is one of several breeds prone to oral melanoma. Canines’ plight highlights the deep genetic roots of cancer: breeding dogs for certain traits, like a golden mane or elongated snout, inadvertently passes other, undesirable, genetic traits from generation to generation, with cancer effectively piggybacking on the good looks we associate with pure breeds. Similar forces work on humans too: For example, women of Ashkenazi background are at increased risk for breast cancer stemming from the BRCA genetic mutation.

the evolutionary biologist and cardiologist Dr. Barbara J. Natterson-Horowitz and science journalist Kathryn Bowers note that beagles and dachshunds are relatively cancer-free. Natterson-Horowitz and Bowers write that “these extra-healthy dog breeds may point to behaviors or physiology that offer cancer protection.” What those behaviors or mechanisms may be, we do not know.

From the article.
Research is also being done with Ashkenazi Jews who are less genetically diverse than other Jewish ethnic divisions.
WIKIPEDIA
This is primarily due to their, somewhat, strict practice of endogamy over centuries.




Good news for my “Wally” as he is a Beaschund or Doxie (beagle/dauschund mix) depending on where you hail from!


so, maybe WE are causing dogs to get cancer?

Dogs probably also get cancer because they are, more than any other animal, exposed to the cornucopia of toxins that are the products and by-products of modern civilization. “They breathe the same air [we do]; they drink the same water,” explains Matthew Breen, who heads a canine cancer research lab at the North Carolina State University. Formaldehyde in furniture, bisphenol-A in plastic dishware, polyaromatic hydrocarbons in burned meat: Your poodle is about as exposed to these likely carcinogens as you are.

So this young and enthusiastic “cancer doctor/researcher” approaches an elephant handler, Peterson, at the local zoo and asks if he can draw some blood from the elephants…

Peterson has his reasons for the collaboration. About 96 elephants are killed by poachers in Africa each day for the ivory in their tusks. Peterson thinks that if people realized that elephants possessed the cure for cancer, they’d take greater care to save them. “Who’d want to throw away the cure for childhood cancer? This is our chance to save people and elephants.”

Peto's Paradox

Peto’s Paradox is named after Sir Richard Peto, the Oxford University medical statistician and epidemiologist whose work in the 1970s pointed to the link between smoking and cancer. Like all paradoxes, Peto’s is incredibly complex precisely because it is so incredibly simple: Why don’t big animals get more cancer than small animals? Cancer is the unregulated division of cells. The more cells an animal has, the more likely any one of those cells is to go rogue, turning into a tumor. Huge mammals like whales and elephants have many more cells than humans do, which should make them much more prone to cancer. A whale has 1,000 times more cells than humans, which should mark it for cancer right from birth. But for some reason, the whale evades that fate better than we do. Not only that, but the whale evades cancer for a very long time, with some bowhead whales living for 200 years. Some elephants live for 60 years, carrying 100 times more cells than we do.

I remember reading sometime back about a study regarding people's cancer connection to their height, I believe THAT was discounted...

In October 2015, two independent studies showed that elephants have 20 copies of tumor suppressor gene TP53 in their genome, where humans and other mammals have only one
Additional research showed 14 copies of the gene present in the DNA of preserved mammoths

Also from WIKI

Another project looks at cancer resistance in elephants. Despite their huge size, which for most mammals results in an increased risk of cancer, elephants do not get cancer (a phenomenon known as Peto’s Paradox). The Schiffman Lab has a close collaboration with the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, Utah, where we are trying to identify the functional mechanism that prevents cancer in elephants. Once discovered, we will search for therapeutic cancer drugs that can mimic these effects and start clinical trials in high-risk patient populations, such as those families with Li-Fraumeni Syndrome.

Utah Healthcare

This may offer a solution to the "paradox".



Fascinating and it makes me hopeful that somehow they are so close!

Have a wonderful Sunday ATS!

a reply to: TNMockingbird

It is fascinating. I just hope researches can finally find a cure. This dreaded disease has been around way too long and has devastated millions of families. It's about time bio medical breakthroughs catch up with the speed of technology.

I read about this last week. it is interesting and it might help research to find cure for many cancer diseases.
About Ashkenazi jews and endogamy, history tells us that all nations have had that. Ashkenazi gene for longevity is Rs2542052 and have two copies of the C allele. I have that gene but my lineage last 700 years have no endogamy. I should live to 100 years old and maybe more.

You can check if you have longevity gene using your autosomal file and promethease
Link
not expencive but gives a lot of information.

a reply to: TNMockingbird

Nice OP Mockingbird. I think one of the biggest reasons people get cancer is because of the disposition to anger and hatred and being exposed to a multitude of positive electromagnetic energy, dogs or animals that are domesticated would be affected by these as well.

There may a cure for some of it, but do you really think it will be affordable, the Pharma industry has not exactly been the bedrock of humanity, they are just like the oil industry when it comes to free energy.

Great subject tmmb, I more than most am a great dog lover. For years Thunder, my 155 lbs. malamute wolf mix slept right by my bed. I lost him to cancer last November. After much research I think that a lot of the drugs we give our pet cause the very cancer we fear.
I am speaking about the anti parasite drugs like canine advantage. I think anything that kill parasites in advance can't really be good for our dogs.
I guess we simply have to weigh the difference between taking a chance on heart worms or cancer.

Hi health fans.

This "man-made-cancer$"? possibility, for men AND dogs are the resaons we
"paranoiacly" eat ORGANIC !!

We do NOT want to give money to the robbers who sell us bad food with
5 or 10 lines of ingredient lists, only for $$$$, NOT caring for us humans !!

This way we should live 100+ years !? B-))))

Blue skies.

I wonder if rapid breeding and cross breeding has a bug play on all of it?
I mean, elephants haven't really bred or mated with other species as much as dogs have been forced to, or that humans do on a regular basis. We pass on genes, and maybe other stronger beneficial genes like ability to gain more muscle over this TP53 gene comes into play. Cancer isn't really a 'real' threat when it comes to procreation, it's a bad mutation that happens in an already existing host, therefore at conception the more dominant genes will get passed on.

a reply to: strongfp

Species survive via reproduction, and large mammals have much longer gestation periods: An elephant spends about 22 months in the womb, while whale gestation can last about 18 months. Moreover, elephants can keep reproducing until what is, for them, senescence: after 50. Elephants that are able to suppress cancer long enough to reproduce end up passing those cancer-suppressing genes to their progeny.

THIS is true, what you said...but what if during the gestation process, the genes (cancer causing) become non threat?

AGAIN...I am NOT a geneticist or biologist!

a reply to: Nickn3

My dog Wally is blessed with no fleas and no heart worms...
He eats regular dog food, of course, but sometimes "people food" as well.

His vet said he was one of the healthiest dogs he had seen!

a reply to: soulpowertothendegree

There may a cure for some of it, but do you really think it will be affordable, the Pharma industry has not exactly been the bedrock of humanity, they are just like the oil industry when it comes to free energy.

I am not sure but, let's get the CURE...then work on the big pharma!

cart before the horse and all that!

a reply to: dollukka

I'll have to investigate this site.
Thanks for the link!

a reply to: WeRpeons

Couldn't agree more!

Thanks!

I read about this a little while back. Pretty interesting stuff. S&F