Transmission of devil facial-tumour disease

An uncanny similarity in the karyotype of these malignant tumours means that they could be infective.

Abstract

The Tasmanian devil, a large carnivorous Australian marsupial, is under threat from a widespread fatal disease in which a malignant oral–facial tumour obstructs the animal's ability to feed¹. Here we show that the chromosomes in these tumours have undergone a complex rearrangement that is identical for every animal studied. In light of this remarkable finding and of the known fighting behaviour of the devils², we propose that the disease is transmitted by allograft, whereby an infectious cell line is passed directly between the animals through bites they inflict on one another.