Importance of metabolic rate to the relationship between the number of genes in a functional category and body size in Peto's paradox for cancer.

ABSTRACT: Elucidation of tumour suppression mechanisms is a major challenge in cancer biology. Therefore, Peto's paradox, or low cancer incidence in large animals, has attracted focus. According to the gene-abundance hypothesis, which considers the increase/decrease in cancer-related genes with body size, researchers evaluated the associations between gene abundance and body size. However, previous studies only focused on a few specific gene functions and have ignored the alternative hypothesis (metabolic rate hypothesis): in this hypothesis, the cellular metabolic rate and subsequent oxidative stress decreases with increasing body size. In this study, we have elected to explore the gene-abundance hypothesis taking into account the metabolic rate hypothesis. Thus, we comprehensively investigated the

SUBMITTER: Takemoto K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5043308 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature