Cancer Prevalence Across Vertebrates.

Cancer is pervasive across multicellular species, but what explains differences in cancer prevalence across species? Using 16,049 necropsy records for 292 species spanning three clades (amphibians, sauropsids and mammals) we found that neoplasia and malignancy prevalence increases with adult weight (contrary to Peto's Paradox) and somatic mutation rate, but decreases with gestation time. Evolution of cancer susceptibility appears to have undergone sudden shifts followed by stabilizing selection. Outliers for neoplasia prevalence include the common porpoise (<1.3%), the Rodrigues fruit bat (<1.6%) the black-footed penguin (<0.4%), ferrets (63%) and opossums (35%). Discovering why some species have particularly high or low levels of cancer may lead to a better understanding of cancer syndromes and novel strategies for the management and prevention of cancer.
Competing Interests: Competing interests: JDS is co-founder, shareholder, and employed by Peel Therapeutics, Inc., a company developing evolution-inspired medicines based on cancer resistance in elephants. LMA is share-holder and consultant to Peel Therapeutics, Inc. The other authors declare that they have no competing interests (ZTC, VKH, WM, SR, DM, SEK, MW, RK, KN, CB, LR, AP, BM, SS, SA, GF, OV, MG, EGD, SS, EF, HD, AZ, TAG, BT, TMH, MT, AA, AMB, CCM)