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Saturday, January 2, 2010

Tasmanian devil facial cancer origins 'identified'

Posted on 12:41 PM by Health&Beauty

Researchers believe they have identified the source of fatal tumours that threaten to wipe out the wild population of Tasmanian devils.

Writing in Science, an international team of scientists suggest cells that protect nerves are the likely origin of devil facial tumour disease (DFTD).

The disease is a transmissible cancer that is spread by physical contact, and quickly kills the animals.

DFTD has caused the devil population to collapse by 60% in the past decade.

"To look more closely at the tumours' origin, we sequenced the genes that are expressed in this devil cancer and compared them with other genes that are expressed in other devil tissues," explained lead author Elizabeth Murchison, from the Australian National University in Canberra.

She told the Science podcast the team's findings delivered surprising results.

"We found that the tumours expressed genes that were normally only expressed by Schwann cells, which are cells that are found in the peripheral nervous system that protect nerves."

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