美国华盛顿州大学Andrew Storfer团队发现，塔斯马尼亚魔鬼中的可传播癌症逐渐变为局部传播。该研究于2020年12月11日发表于国际一流学术期刊《科学》。

研究人员应用系统动力学方法阐明了塔斯马尼亚魔鬼（袋獾）面部肿瘤病（DFTD）的流行病学动态，该疾病是一种致命的、可传播的癌症，其基因组比任何病毒大数千倍。尽管先前有关于袋獾灭绝的预测，但传播速度已从每名受感染的个体约3.5次继发感染急剧下降到目前的约1次。因此，DFTD似乎正在从出现过渡到局部特有，为濒临灭绝的塔斯马尼亚魔鬼提供了生存的希望。

更广泛地说，这项研究提供了一个可以应用于几乎所有病原体的新型系统动力学分析框架。

据了解，新兴传染病是对人类健康和生物多样性的最大威胁之一。系统动力学经常被用来推断流行病学参数，这些参数对于指导人类病毒（如SARS-CoV-2）的干预策略至关重要。 

附：英文原文

Title: A transmissible cancer shifts from emergence to endemism in Tasmanian devils

Author: Austin H. Patton, Matthew F. Lawrance, Mark J. Margres, Christopher P. Kozakiewicz, Rodrigo Hamede, Manuel Ruiz-Aravena, David G. Hamilton, Sebastien Comte, Lauren E. Ricci, Robyn L. Taylor, Tanja Stadler, Adam Leaché, Hamish McCallum, Menna E. Jones, Paul A. Hohenlohe, Andrew Storfer

Issue&Volume: 2020/12/11

Abstract: Emerging infectious diseases pose one of the greatest threats to human health and biodiversity. Phylodynamics is often used to infer epidemiological parameters essential for guiding intervention strategies for human viruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2). Here, we applied phylodynamics to elucidate the epidemiological dynamics of Tasmanian devil facial tumor disease (DFTD), a fatal, transmissible cancer with a genome thousands of times larger than that of any virus. Despite prior predictions of devil extinction, transmission rates have declined precipitously from ~3.5 secondary infections per infected individual to ~1 at present. Thus, DFTD appears to be transitioning from emergence to endemism, lending hope for the continued survival of the endangered Tasmanian devil. More generally, our study demonstrates a new phylodynamic analytical framework that can be applied to virtually any pathogen.

DOI: 10.1126/science.abb9772

Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6522/eabb9772