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Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox?

Cancer, one of the leading health concerns for humans, is by no means a human-unique malady. Accumulating evidence shows that cancer kills domestic and wild animals at a similar rate to humans and can even pose a conservation threat to certain species. Assuming that each physiologically active and p...

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Autores principales: Maciak, Sebastian, Michalak, Pawel
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BlackWell Publishing Ltd 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310577/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25667599
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/eva.12228
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author Maciak, Sebastian
Michalak, Pawel
author_facet Maciak, Sebastian
Michalak, Pawel
author_sort Maciak, Sebastian
collection PubMed
description Cancer, one of the leading health concerns for humans, is by no means a human-unique malady. Accumulating evidence shows that cancer kills domestic and wild animals at a similar rate to humans and can even pose a conservation threat to certain species. Assuming that each physiologically active and proliferating cell is at risk of malignant transformation, any evolutionary increase in the number of cells (and thus body mass) will lead to a higher cancer frequency, all else being equal. However, available data fail to support the prediction that bigger animals are affected by cancer more than smaller ones. The unexpected lack of correlation between body size (and life span) and cancer risk across taxa was dubbed Peto's paradox. In this perspective, several plausible explanations of Peto's paradox are presented, with the emphasis on a largely underappreciated relation of cell size to both metabolism and cell division rates across species, which we believe are key factors underlying the paradox. We conclude that larger organisms have bigger and slowly dividing cells with lower energy turnover, all significantly reducing the risk of cancer initiation. Solving Peto's paradox will enhance our understanding the evolution of cancer and may provide new implications for cancer prevention and treatment.
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spelling pubmed-43105772015-02-09 Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox? Maciak, Sebastian Michalak, Pawel Evol Appl Perspective Cancer, one of the leading health concerns for humans, is by no means a human-unique malady. Accumulating evidence shows that cancer kills domestic and wild animals at a similar rate to humans and can even pose a conservation threat to certain species. Assuming that each physiologically active and proliferating cell is at risk of malignant transformation, any evolutionary increase in the number of cells (and thus body mass) will lead to a higher cancer frequency, all else being equal. However, available data fail to support the prediction that bigger animals are affected by cancer more than smaller ones. The unexpected lack of correlation between body size (and life span) and cancer risk across taxa was dubbed Peto's paradox. In this perspective, several plausible explanations of Peto's paradox are presented, with the emphasis on a largely underappreciated relation of cell size to both metabolism and cell division rates across species, which we believe are key factors underlying the paradox. We conclude that larger organisms have bigger and slowly dividing cells with lower energy turnover, all significantly reducing the risk of cancer initiation. Solving Peto's paradox will enhance our understanding the evolution of cancer and may provide new implications for cancer prevention and treatment. BlackWell Publishing Ltd 2015-01 2014-11-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4310577/ /pubmed/25667599 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/eva.12228 Text en © 2014 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Perspective
Maciak, Sebastian
Michalak, Pawel
Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox?
title Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox?
title_full Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox?
title_fullStr Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox?
title_full_unstemmed Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox?
title_short Cell size and cancer: a new solution to Peto's paradox?
title_sort cell size and cancer: a new solution to peto's paradox?
topic Perspective
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310577/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25667599
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/eva.12228
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