Mammalian genes were long thought to be constrained within somatic cells in most cell
types. This concept was challenged recently when cellular organelles including …

The domestic dog represents one of the most dramatic long-term evolutionary experiments
undertaken by humans. From a large wolf-like progenitor, unparalleled diversity in …

Tobacco smoking increases the risk of at least 17 classes of human cancer. We analyzed
somatic mutations and DNA methylation in 5243 cancers of types for which tobacco smoking …

During the course of a lifetime, somatic cells acquire mutations. Different mutational
processes may contribute to the mutations accumulated in a cell, with each imprinting a …

Transmissible cancers are infectious parasitic clones that metastasize to new hosts, living
past the death of the founder animal in which the cancer initiated. We investigated the …

Recently, we showed that generation of tumours in syngeneic mice by cells devoid of
mitochondrial (mt) DNA (ρ0 cells) is linked to the acquisition of the host mtDNA. However …

Transmissible cancers are malignant cell lineages that spread clonally between individuals.
Several such cancers, termed bivalve transmissible neoplasia (BTN), induce leukemia-like …

Dogs were present in the Americas before the arrival of European colonists, but the origin
and fate of these precontact dogs are largely unknown. We sequenced 71 mitochondrial and …

Although cancer rarely acts as an infectious disease, a recently emerged transmissible
cancer in Tasmanian devils (Sarcophilus harrisii) is virtually 100% fatal. Devil facial tumour …

Outbreaks of fatal leukemia-like cancers of marine bivalves throughout the world have led to
massive population loss. The cause of the disease is unknown. We recently identified a …