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New Species May Evolve from Cancers

106 points by jessaustin 7y ago

geocrasher 7y ago
I seem to remember there being an X-Files episode that presented this theory.
hsnewman 7y ago
So they may not as well? Is this news?
fiblye 7y ago
Strange question, but at some point, could the self-sustaining cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks be considered a separate species?
- selimthegrim 7y ago
  I think they need a special environment?
  - pygy_ 7y ago
    So does every living thing on earth... HeLa cells are remarkably adapted to growing in biology labs, not sure how they'd fare outside... Edit: it's been proposed as Helacyton gartleri, but not widely accepted because "Van Valen's argument of HeLa being a new species does not fulfill the criteria for an independent unicellular asexually reproducing species because of the notorious instability of HeLa's karyotype and their lack of a strict ancestral-descendant lineage." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#New_species_proposal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#New_species_proposal
  - fiblye 7y ago
    Technically, all life does. According to Wikipedia, the cells have a tendency to contaminate pretty much any suitable environment around and proliferate easily. Seems almost more like a fungal or bacterial growth than what we’d typically consider cancer.
    - lawlessone 7y ago
      Does it still contain all the information that makes Henrietta Henrietta? like face structure, hair colour etc?
      - Santosh83 7y ago
        Probably, but may have significantly mutated all over the place, corrupting that information. Additionally there are more stable chromosomes than in a normal human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#Chromosome_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#Chromosome_number
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks > Henrietta Lacks (born Loretta Pleasant; August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951)[2] was an African-American woman[3] whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line[4] and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line reproduces indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to the present day.[5]
  - UI_at_80x24 7y ago
    It's important to remember this regarding Henrietta; Neither her nor her family were ever compensated for the 'use' of her biological material nor was consent ever given for a donation. The medical-research community has profited incalculably from this. She would have been treated better if she had recorded a song.
    - mrfusion 7y ago
      The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
      - UI_at_80x24 7y ago
        If the companies didn't profit from it, I'd fully agree with your statement.
        theonlyklas 7y ago
        What is wrong with taking profit from their work? All she had a resource she wouldn't have been able to create value from no matter how much time she had in life.
        close04 7y ago
        There are so many things wrong with the conclusion that whoever can make more value from something is entitled to take it, especially when we're talking about a human being. I'll tone down the analogy so we don't go into abject examples that would still perfectly fit your point. You probably don't create that much value from your house, land, car, etc. But companies still aren't entitled to take them from you simply because they can make more money from them. If you are not willing to give them up for free you're contradicting your own point. There's the mistaken impression that this is a 0 sum game and for companies to win, Henrietta Lacks and her family have to lose, it's expected of them. Or that the profits have to be exclusively on the company's side.
vanderZwan 7y ago
> Some species also have complex features, such as cells organized into structures resembling muscles for movement, for example. She just doesn’t find it plausible that such complexity arose from a cancer. Wouldn't that (theoretically) be be easier for cancer cells? The article doesn't state if these muscles came from "new" genes that were evolved for this or if they reactivated pre-existing genes from more complex ancestors, but the latter seems like a significantly smaller evolutionary leap than the former, and cancer cells would be in the unique position to be able to do that.
honestoHeminway 7y ago
Bicameral Monks?
vharuck 7y ago
For the biologists out there: what parts of this theory are limited by actual phenomena? What parts just push the bounds of a mental model used by scientists to help understand biology? As a non-biologist, it's sometimes hard to know the difference. Also, what are the arguments for not saying transmissible cancers are parasites?
- dfsegoat 7y ago
  It's helpful to see how there are fundamental precedents for externally mediated genomic change, which may then give rise to phenotypic ("what we see") or genomic ("the source code of what we see") differences: Transposons or "jumping genes" [1] are segments of DNA code which can move around within a genome by themselves (autonomously). Presumably though, over time, enough of these moving in the right place - in combination with some other mutation - might confer some benefit that leads to speciation [2]. edit: length / clarity [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element [2] - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wandering-fly-gene-suppor/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wandering-fly-gen...
  - aluren 7y ago
    DNA is nothing like source code. Why do people keep repeating this analogy. At any rate, cell differentiation/compartmentation within a tumor has been observed, so things do get blurry indeed. It's also worth noting that there isn't a single definition of 'species' and it's all just semantics that changes depending on your field. (The traditional 'inter-fertile over two generations' you learn in high school is helpful but doesn't stand up to many observations.) Ultimately a species is what biologists say is a species.
NoGravitas 7y ago
I'm not sure what triggered the association for me, but it reminded me of Peter Watts' The Things. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/ http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/
- knolax 7y ago
  I remember in that short story The Thing begins to call humans "living cancer" because of how specialized human cells were to the point that cells in certain structures like the brain wouldn't be able to support themselves on their own.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Watts thought of everything first. Another comment here (for some reason, downvoted to oblivion) was reminded of Echopraxia.
geggam 7y ago
Isnt this a movie ?
aszantu 7y ago
Reminds me of Tasmanian devil with the transmissible face cancer
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumor_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumor_disease Or CTVT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_tumor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_... Parasitic transmissible cancers are very rare, because they generally lack the ability to adapt genetically, and get wiped out after a few thousand years, when all their accumulated mutations start to impact their survivability.
pvaldes 7y ago
I had seen a lot of Myxozoa previously. I remember being thrilled when the origin of Myxosporeans were disclosed. It was a "in your face" moment. The cnidarian traits were clearly there for anybody to see it. But I agree that many have just too complex life cycles to be a cancer. The idea of a microbe using a TASER like weapon is also really bizarre if we think about it. They are also too numerous to appear just by chance (again and again), and then evolve to attack seaworms, and later evolve again to invade fishe's hearts, muscles, gallbladders, gills... too much stable complexity for a cancer.
tabtab 7y ago
Explains why that red lump on my back asked to borrow some cash.
vikramkr 7y ago
I know a few people that would argue that HeLa cells night as well be their own separate species after dealing with cell line contamination and all by HeLa cells, it's more in a joking sense afaik but there might be something to treating some of these cancer cell lineages as new species

106 points by jessaustin 7y ago

geocrasher 7y ago

I seem to remember there being an X-Files episode that presented this theory.

hsnewman 7y ago

So they may not as well? Is this news?

fiblye 7y ago

Strange question, but at some point, could the self-sustaining cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks be considered a separate species?

selimthegrim 7y ago
I think they need a special environment?
- pygy_ 7y ago
  So does every living thing on earth... HeLa cells are remarkably adapted to growing in biology labs, not sure how they'd fare outside... Edit: it's been proposed as Helacyton gartleri, but not widely accepted because "Van Valen's argument of HeLa being a new species does not fulfill the criteria for an independent unicellular asexually reproducing species because of the notorious instability of HeLa's karyotype and their lack of a strict ancestral-descendant lineage." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#New_species_proposal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#New_species_proposal
- fiblye 7y ago
  Technically, all life does. According to Wikipedia, the cells have a tendency to contaminate pretty much any suitable environment around and proliferate easily. Seems almost more like a fungal or bacterial growth than what we’d typically consider cancer.
  - lawlessone 7y ago
    Does it still contain all the information that makes Henrietta Henrietta? like face structure, hair colour etc?
    - Santosh83 7y ago
      Probably, but may have significantly mutated all over the place, corrupting that information. Additionally there are more stable chromosomes than in a normal human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#Chromosome_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa#Chromosome_number
gwbas1c 7y ago
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks > Henrietta Lacks (born Loretta Pleasant; August 1, 1920 – October 4, 1951)[2] was an African-American woman[3] whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line[4] and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line reproduces indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to the present day.[5]
- UI_at_80x24 7y ago
  It's important to remember this regarding Henrietta; Neither her nor her family were ever compensated for the 'use' of her biological material nor was consent ever given for a donation. The medical-research community has profited incalculably from this. She would have been treated better if she had recorded a song.
  - mrfusion 7y ago
    The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
    - UI_at_80x24 7y ago
      If the companies didn't profit from it, I'd fully agree with your statement.
      - theonlyklas 7y ago
        What is wrong with taking profit from their work? All she had a resource she wouldn't have been able to create value from no matter how much time she had in life.
        close04 7y ago
        There are so many things wrong with the conclusion that whoever can make more value from something is entitled to take it, especially when we're talking about a human being. I'll tone down the analogy so we don't go into abject examples that would still perfectly fit your point. You probably don't create that much value from your house, land, car, etc. But companies still aren't entitled to take them from you simply because they can make more money from them. If you are not willing to give them up for free you're contradicting your own point. There's the mistaken impression that this is a 0 sum game and for companies to win, Henrietta Lacks and her family have to lose, it's expected of them. Or that the profits have to be exclusively on the company's side.

vanderZwan 7y ago

> Some species also have complex features, such as cells organized into structures resembling muscles for movement, for example. She just doesn’t find it plausible that such complexity arose from a cancer. Wouldn't that (theoretically) be be easier for cancer cells? The article doesn't state if these muscles came from "new" genes that were evolved for this or if they reactivated pre-existing genes from more complex ancestors, but the latter seems like a significantly smaller evolutionary leap than the former, and cancer cells would be in the unique position to be able to do that.

honestoHeminway 7y ago

Bicameral Monks?

vharuck 7y ago

For the biologists out there: what parts of this theory are limited by actual phenomena? What parts just push the bounds of a mental model used by scientists to help understand biology? As a non-biologist, it's sometimes hard to know the difference. Also, what are the arguments for not saying transmissible cancers are parasites?

dfsegoat 7y ago
It's helpful to see how there are fundamental precedents for externally mediated genomic change, which may then give rise to phenotypic ("what we see") or genomic ("the source code of what we see") differences: Transposons or "jumping genes" [1] are segments of DNA code which can move around within a genome by themselves (autonomously). Presumably though, over time, enough of these moving in the right place - in combination with some other mutation - might confer some benefit that leads to speciation [2]. edit: length / clarity [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element [2] - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wandering-fly-gene-suppor/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wandering-fly-gen...
- aluren 7y ago
  DNA is nothing like source code. Why do people keep repeating this analogy. At any rate, cell differentiation/compartmentation within a tumor has been observed, so things do get blurry indeed. It's also worth noting that there isn't a single definition of 'species' and it's all just semantics that changes depending on your field. (The traditional 'inter-fertile over two generations' you learn in high school is helpful but doesn't stand up to many observations.) Ultimately a species is what biologists say is a species.

NoGravitas 7y ago

I'm not sure what triggered the association for me, but it reminded me of Peter Watts' The Things. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/ http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/

knolax 7y ago
I remember in that short story The Thing begins to call humans "living cancer" because of how specialized human cells were to the point that cells in certain structures like the brain wouldn't be able to support themselves on their own.
jessaustin 7y ago
Watts thought of everything first. Another comment here (for some reason, downvoted to oblivion) was reminded of Echopraxia.

geggam 7y ago

Isnt this a movie ?

aszantu 7y ago

Reminds me of Tasmanian devil with the transmissible face cancer

logfromblammo 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumor_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumor_disease Or CTVT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_tumor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_... Parasitic transmissible cancers are very rare, because they generally lack the ability to adapt genetically, and get wiped out after a few thousand years, when all their accumulated mutations start to impact their survivability.

pvaldes 7y ago

I had seen a lot of Myxozoa previously. I remember being thrilled when the origin of Myxosporeans were disclosed. It was a "in your face" moment. The cnidarian traits were clearly there for anybody to see it. But I agree that many have just too complex life cycles to be a cancer. The idea of a microbe using a TASER like weapon is also really bizarre if we think about it. They are also too numerous to appear just by chance (again and again), and then evolve to attack seaworms, and later evolve again to invade fishe's hearts, muscles, gallbladders, gills... too much stable complexity for a cancer.

tabtab 7y ago

Explains why that red lump on my back asked to borrow some cash.

vikramkr 7y ago

I know a few people that would argue that HeLa cells night as well be their own separate species after dealing with cell line contamination and all by HeLa cells, it's more in a joking sense afaik but there might be something to treating some of these cancer cell lineages as new species