Neoplasia: A Cancer That Spreads Among Shellfish All Around The World

First Posted: Jun 24, 2016 10:47 AM EDT

A study reveals that cancerous cells spread to several species of bivalves. These include cockles, mussels and clams. The cancer is also known as neoplasia, which is a leukemia-like disease that affects the shellfish in many parts of the world.

The study was published in Nature. It was authored by researchers from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). It was led by Stephen Goff, Ph.D., the Higgins Professor of Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics and the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at CUMC. The study also collaborated with researchers from Canada and Spain.

Dr. Goff stated that now that they have detected the spread of cancer among several marine species, the future research will study the mutations that are responsible for these cancer cell transmissions.

Dr. Goff and his team examined the DAN of cancers and normal tissue from mussels, golden carpet shell clams and cockles that were collected from the coasts of Canada and Spain after suspecting that the cause behind the cancer cluster was a virus.

Contagious cancers ravaging bivalves will impact paella prices and has interesting implications for human cancer? https://t.co/f3vYrXZw7h

— Val M. (@Val_on_food) June 23, 2016

The results showed that the cancers were caused by individual clones of cancer cells that were genetically different from their hosts. They also discovered that in one species, which is the carpet shell clam, the infectious cancer cells came from a related but different species. They concluded that this cancer was due to a case of cross-species transmission.On the other hand, there is no evidence that this cancer can be transmitted on humans.

Neoplasia is the abnormal growth of tissue. It also forms a mass, which is also called a tumor. The World Health Organization (WHO) categorizes neoplasms as in situ neoplasms, benign neoplasm neoplasms of uncertain or unknown behavior and malignant neoplasm, which are also known as cancers.