The cancer which survived: insights from the genome of an 11000 year-old cancer.

The canine transmissible venereal tumour (CTVT) is a transmissible cancer that is spread between dogs by the allogeneic transfer of living cancer cells during coitus. CTVT affects dogs around the world and is the oldest and most divergent cancer lineage known in nature. CTVT first emerged as a cancer about 11000 years ago from the somatic cells of an individual dog, and has subsequently acquired adaptations for cell transmission between hosts and for survival as an allogeneic graft. Furthermore, it has achieved a genome configuration which is compatible with long-term survival. Here, we discuss and speculate on the evolutionary processes and adaptions which underlie the success of this remarkable lineage.We thank Máire Lawlor for helpful discussions and critical reading of the manuscript. This work is supported by a grant from the Wellcome Trust (102942/Z/13/A), a grant from the National Science Foundation (DEB-1316549), a Royal Society Research Grant (RG130615), an Eric Guiler Tasmanian Devil Research Grant from the University of Tasmania Foundation and a Philip Leverhulme Prize awarded by the Leverhulme Trust.This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in Current Opinion in Genetics & Development (Strakova A, Murchison EP, Current Opinion in Genetics & Development 2015, 30, 49–55, doi:10.1016/j.gde.2015.03.005). The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2015.03.005