Solutions to Peto's paradox revealed by mathematical modelling and cross-species cancer gene analysis.

ABSTRACT: Whales have 1000-fold more cells than humans and mice have 1000-fold fewer; however, cancer risk across species does not increase with the number of somatic cells and the lifespan of the organism. This observation is known as Peto's paradox. How much would evolution have to change the parameters of somatic evolution in order to equalize the cancer risk between species that differ by orders of magnitude in size? Analysis of previously published models of colorectal cancer suggests that a two- to three-fold decrease in the mutation rate or stem cell division rate is enough to reduce a whale's cancer risk to that of a human. Similarly, the addition of one to two required tumour-suppressor gene mutations would also be sufficient. We surveyed mammalian genomes and did not find a positive correl

SUBMITTER: Caulin AF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4581027 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature