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Survival and Detection of Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia from the Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria (MarBTN) in Seawater

Many pathogens can cause cancer, but cancer itself does not normally act as an infectious agent. However, transmissible cancers have been found in a few cases in nature: in Tasmanian devils, dogs, and several bivalve species. The transmissible cancers in dogs and devils are known to spread through d...

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Autores principales: Giersch, Rachael M., Hart, Samuel F. M., Reddy, Satyatejas G., Yonemitsu, Marisa A., Orellana Rosales, María J., Korn, Madelyn, Geleta, Brook M., Countway, Peter D., Fernández Robledo, José A., Metzger, Michael J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955499/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35335607
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11030283
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author Giersch, Rachael M.
Hart, Samuel F. M.
Reddy, Satyatejas G.
Yonemitsu, Marisa A.
Orellana Rosales, María J.
Korn, Madelyn
Geleta, Brook M.
Countway, Peter D.
Fernández Robledo, José A.
Metzger, Michael J.
author_facet Giersch, Rachael M.
Hart, Samuel F. M.
Reddy, Satyatejas G.
Yonemitsu, Marisa A.
Orellana Rosales, María J.
Korn, Madelyn
Geleta, Brook M.
Countway, Peter D.
Fernández Robledo, José A.
Metzger, Michael J.
author_sort Giersch, Rachael M.
collection PubMed
description Many pathogens can cause cancer, but cancer itself does not normally act as an infectious agent. However, transmissible cancers have been found in a few cases in nature: in Tasmanian devils, dogs, and several bivalve species. The transmissible cancers in dogs and devils are known to spread through direct physical contact, but the exact route of transmission of bivalve transmissible neoplasia (BTN) has not yet been confirmed. It has been hypothesized that cancer cells from bivalves could be released by diseased animals and spread through the water column to infect/engraft into other animals. To test the feasibility of this proposed mechanism of transmission, we tested the ability of BTN cells from the soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria BTN, or MarBTN) to survive in artificial seawater. We found that MarBTN cells are highly sensitive to salinity, with acute toxicity at salinity levels lower than those found in the native marine environment. BTN cells also survive longer at lower temperatures, with 50% of cells surviving greater than 12 days in seawater at 10 °C, and more than 19 days at 4 °C. With one clam donor, living cells were observed for more than eight weeks at 4 °C. We also used qPCR of environmental DNA (eDNA) to detect the presence of MarBTN-specific DNA in the environment. We observed release of MarBTN-specific DNA into the water of laboratory aquaria containing highly MarBTN-diseased clams, and we detected MarBTN-specific DNA in seawater samples collected from MarBTN-endemic areas in Maine, although the copy numbers detected in environmental samples were much lower than those found in aquaria. Overall, these data show that MarBTN cells can survive well in seawater, and they are released into the water by diseased animals. These findings support the hypothesis that BTN is spread from animal-to-animal by free cells through seawater.
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spelling pubmed-89554992022-03-26 Survival and Detection of Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia from the Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria (MarBTN) in Seawater Giersch, Rachael M. Hart, Samuel F. M. Reddy, Satyatejas G. Yonemitsu, Marisa A. Orellana Rosales, María J. Korn, Madelyn Geleta, Brook M. Countway, Peter D. Fernández Robledo, José A. Metzger, Michael J. Pathogens Article Many pathogens can cause cancer, but cancer itself does not normally act as an infectious agent. However, transmissible cancers have been found in a few cases in nature: in Tasmanian devils, dogs, and several bivalve species. The transmissible cancers in dogs and devils are known to spread through direct physical contact, but the exact route of transmission of bivalve transmissible neoplasia (BTN) has not yet been confirmed. It has been hypothesized that cancer cells from bivalves could be released by diseased animals and spread through the water column to infect/engraft into other animals. To test the feasibility of this proposed mechanism of transmission, we tested the ability of BTN cells from the soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria BTN, or MarBTN) to survive in artificial seawater. We found that MarBTN cells are highly sensitive to salinity, with acute toxicity at salinity levels lower than those found in the native marine environment. BTN cells also survive longer at lower temperatures, with 50% of cells surviving greater than 12 days in seawater at 10 °C, and more than 19 days at 4 °C. With one clam donor, living cells were observed for more than eight weeks at 4 °C. We also used qPCR of environmental DNA (eDNA) to detect the presence of MarBTN-specific DNA in the environment. We observed release of MarBTN-specific DNA into the water of laboratory aquaria containing highly MarBTN-diseased clams, and we detected MarBTN-specific DNA in seawater samples collected from MarBTN-endemic areas in Maine, although the copy numbers detected in environmental samples were much lower than those found in aquaria. Overall, these data show that MarBTN cells can survive well in seawater, and they are released into the water by diseased animals. These findings support the hypothesis that BTN is spread from animal-to-animal by free cells through seawater. MDPI 2022-02-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8955499/ /pubmed/35335607 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11030283 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Giersch, Rachael M.
Hart, Samuel F. M.
Reddy, Satyatejas G.
Yonemitsu, Marisa A.
Orellana Rosales, María J.
Korn, Madelyn
Geleta, Brook M.
Countway, Peter D.
Fernández Robledo, José A.
Metzger, Michael J.
Survival and Detection of Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia from the Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria (MarBTN) in Seawater
title Survival and Detection of Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia from the Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria (MarBTN) in Seawater
title_full Survival and Detection of Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia from the Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria (MarBTN) in Seawater
title_fullStr Survival and Detection of Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia from the Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria (MarBTN) in Seawater
title_full_unstemmed Survival and Detection of Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia from the Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria (MarBTN) in Seawater
title_short Survival and Detection of Bivalve Transmissible Neoplasia from the Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria (MarBTN) in Seawater
title_sort survival and detection of bivalve transmissible neoplasia from the soft-shell clam mya arenaria (marbtn) in seawater
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955499/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35335607
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11030283
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