Pervasive duplication of tumor suppressors in Afrotherians during the evolution of large bodies and reduced cancer risk
Abstract
The risk of developing cancer is correlated with body size and lifespan within species. Between species, however, there is no correlation between cancer and either body size or lifespan, indicating that large, long-lived species have evolved enhanced cancer protection mechanisms. Elephants and their relatives (Proboscideans) are a particularly interesting lineage for the exploration of mechanisms underlying the evolution of augmented cancer resistance because they evolved large bodies recently within a clade of smaller bodied species (Afrotherians). Here, we explore the contribution of gene duplication to body size and cancer risk in Afrotherians. Unexpectedly, we found that tumor suppressor duplication was pervasive in Afrotherian genomes, rather than restricted to Proboscideans. Proboscideans, however, have duplicates in unique pathways that may underlie some aspects of their remarkable anti-cancer cell biology. These data suggest that duplication of tumor suppressor genes facilitated the evolution of increased body size by compensating for decreasing intrinsic cancer risk.
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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.
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Funding
University of Chicago
- Juan M Vazquez
- Vincent J Lynch
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2021, Vazquez & Lynch
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Further reading
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- Evolutionary Biology
- Epidemiology and Global Health
- Microbiology and Infectious Disease
- Genetics and Genomics
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Extra copies of tumor suppressor genes reduce the risk of cancer in larger animals