Cure for a common turtle cancer takes a lesson from human cancers
A one-two punch can knock out a common cancer in sea turtles. Just as some human cancers are best treated first by surgical removal of the tumor and then by chemotherapy, surgery and treatment with the anticancer drug fluorouracil reduced the reoccurrence of the sometimes deadly turtle cancer fibropapilloma from 60% to 18%, researchers report today in Communications Biology.
The cancer often leads to rapidly growing tumors on the mouth, in the eyes, and on the flippers that interfer with eating, swimming, and other functionsโat times so much that the animals ultimately die. Biologists in Florida first noticed the disease in green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas, pictured) more than a century ago and by the 1990s had learned it was spread by a herpeslike virus. Today, this cancer is found all over the world, particularly in warmer places.
When researchers working at a sea turtle hospital in Florida compared gene activity in tumors with gene activity in healthy green sea turtle tissue, they discovered that the tumors thrive thanks to a network of proteins that is very similar to the network of proteins that promote a human skin cancer, basal cell carcinoma. Hence, they tried anticancer drugs on the turtles.
Click the link to read the story and the paper…
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Photo from Jen Zuber .
