Neoplasia in Mollusks: What Does it Tell us about Cancer in Humans? - A Review

Neoplasia – the abnormal growth of cells – is associated mainly with higher vertebrates (e.g., humans and mammals). However, neoplastic processes or cancers are ubiquitous among living organisms, with a high incidence of reported neoplasms in mollusks. Both benign and malignant cancers have been described in mollusks, but just two malignant neoplasms have raised scientific and industry concerns: gonadal neoplasia and disseminated or leukemia-like neoplasia. These cancers have been reported in either wildlife or captive populations; and as in humans, different causes have been suggested including genetic alterations, virus, retrotransposons, and pollutants. In this review, I give a general overview on neoplasia in mollusks with a focus on genes and molecular pathways involved in gonadal and disseminated neoplasia. Subsequently, I highlight some similarities between disseminated neoplasia and human cancers, particularly with leukemia, as well as the advantages of using mollusks affected by this disease as a model system to better understand cancer in humans. Finally, I discuss the feasibility of using mollusks to investigate tumorigenesis. As the field of marine genomics advances, I predict that comparative oncology will gain more attention in the years to come.

Author(s): Felipe Aguilera

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