Studies have revealed the causes of rapid degeneration of dog infectious tumors

canine infectious disease tumor is a contagious cancer, transmitted through the mating of dogs. One characteristic of this cancer is that, for unknown reasons, it degenerates a few weeks after a single radiotherapy or chemotherapy. A recent study published
the Journal of Medicine solves this puzzle, revealing the key role of the immune system in causing rapid tumor degeneration in dogs treated with chemotherapy. Because canine infectious disease tumors have many similarities to various human cancers, these findings may lead to more effective treatment strategies.
"We found that host tissue around the tumor activates the congenital immune system and produces a degenerative factor, which is critical to attracting immune cells in the tumor and triggering a chain reaction that leads to cancer suppression and elimination." "We hope this study will encourage clinical testing of a joint approach to improve cancer immunotherapy," said Ariberto Fassati of University College London (UCL), senior author of the paper.
infectious disease tumors are one of the three known cloned cancers in nature, the other two being kangaroo facial tumors and soft shell clam leukemia. Because of its origins as a common ancestor, dog infectious disease tumors are made up of genetically identical cells in all affected dogs, making it easier to identify the key factors driving cancer degeneration. However, scientists do not yet know how cancer degeneration occurs.
To answer this question, Fassati and his co-collaborators collected biopsy tissue from eight dogs' dogs for sexually transmitted disease tumors, and then gave them chemotherapy drugs for 6 and 14 days before collecting biopsy tissue again. The researchers performed a systematic genome-wide analysis to compare the activity of genes in tumors that had completely subsided and had not subsided.
results show that tumor degeneration occurs in successive steps. First, chemotherapy leads to a strong inflammatory response and proliferation of host skin cells, which may represent an attempt by the tissue around the tumor to contain or replace malignant tissue. The early stages of this degradation also show an increase in the coercion factor of CCL5. Eventually, the process leads to immune rejection of tumors and repair of tissue damage.
, despite the limitations, the study could help guide ongoing and future clinical studies, the researchers said. For example, by combining different methods, the host cells around the tumor are induced to attract unreleashed immune cells to the tumor site, or to improve the effectiveness of immunotherapy against cancer. (Source: Science Network Zhang Zhang)