Is chimerism associated with cancer across the tree of life?

Chimerism is a widespread phenomenon across the tree of life. It is defined as a multicellular organism composed of cells from other genetically distinct entities. This ability to 'tolerate' non-self cells may be linked to susceptibility to diseases like cancer. Here we test whether chimer...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2023-06, Vol.18 (6), p.e0287901
Main Authors: Kapsetaki, Stefania E, Fortunato, Angelo, Compton, Zachary, Rupp, Shawn M, Nour, Zaid, Riggs-Davis, Skyelyn, Stephenson, Dylan, Duke, Elizabeth G, Boddy, Amy M, Harrison, Tara M, Maley, Carlo C, Aktipis, Athena
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Animals
Biology and Life Sciences
Breast cancer
Cancer
Chimeras (Organisms)
Chimerism
Complications and side effects
Computer and Information Sciences
Diagnosis
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
Invasiveness
Malignancy
Mammals
Medicine and Health Sciences
Neoplasms - genetics
Pathogenesis
Taxa
Trees
Tumors
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Summary:Chimerism is a widespread phenomenon across the tree of life. It is defined as a multicellular organism composed of cells from other genetically distinct entities. This ability to 'tolerate' non-self cells may be linked to susceptibility to diseases like cancer. Here we test whether chimerism is associated with cancers across obligately multicellular organisms in the tree of life. We classified 12 obligately multicellular taxa from lowest to highest chimerism levels based on the existing literature on the presence of chimerism in these species. We then tested for associations of chimerism with tumour invasiveness, neoplasia (benign or malignant) prevalence and malignancy prevalence in 11 terrestrial mammalian species. We found that taxa with higher levels of chimerism have higher tumour invasiveness, though there was no association between malignancy or neoplasia and chimerism among mammals. This suggests that there may be an important biological relationship between chimerism and susceptibility to tissue invasion by cancerous cells. Studying chimerism might help us identify mechanisms underlying invasive cancers and also could provide insights into the detection and management of emerging transmissible cancers.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0287901