近日，美国佛蒙特大学教授Julie A. Dragon及其研究组揭示了褐色牛头鲶鱼黑色素瘤是一种新型的传染性癌症。这一研究成果发表在2026年7月22日出版的国际学术期刊《自然》上。

研究人员测试了这样一个假设，即这种痛苦代表了一种克隆传染性癌症，这是一种罕见的现象，癌细胞本身在个体之间传播，表现得更像寄生虫，而不是传统的肿瘤。肿瘤和匹配的非肿瘤宿主组织的全基因组测序显示，肿瘤的线粒体和核基因组彼此之间的关系比与宿主或未受影响的鱼更密切。数百种基因变异在肿瘤样本中是共有的，但在宿主鱼中却没有，远远超过了在传统癌症中所见的水平。这些发现表明，这些棕色牛头的黑色素瘤代表了继狗、袋獾和几种双壳类动物之后的第5种有记载的自然发生的动物传染性癌症。这就提出了关于癌症的起源、传播方式和对鱼类种群的长期影响的重要问题。

据了解，自2012年以来，在横跨美国佛蒙特州和加拿大魁北克省的一个湖泊中，褐色牛头鲶鱼（Ameiurthem nebulosthem）的黑色素瘤发病率很高，表明这是一种致病污染物或传染性疾病。

附：英文原文

Title: Brown bullhead catfish melanoma represents a novel transmissible cancer

Author: Curd, Emily E., Hart, Samuel F. M., Lubkowitz, James, Tracy, Kirsten M., Milazzo, Lucas, Bodnar, Matthew, Jones, Tom, Henderson, Mark J., Emerson, Peter, Dragon, Julie A.

Issue&Volume: 2026-07-22

Abstract: Since 2012, brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) in a lake that spans Vermont, USA, and Quebec, Canada, have shown a high rate of melanomas, suggesting a causal contaminant or contagion1. We tested the hypothesis that this affliction represents a clonally transmissible cancer, a rare phenomenon in which cancer cells themselves spread between individuals, behaving more like parasites than conventional tumours2. Whole-genome sequencing of tumour and matched non-tumour host tissues revealed that tumour mitochondrial and nuclear genomes are more closely related to each other than to their hosts or unaffected fish. Hundreds of thousands of genetic variants are shared among tumour samples but are absent from host fish, vastly exceeding levels seen in conventional cancers3. These findings indicate that melanoma in these brown bullheads represents the fourth documented type of naturally occurring transmissible cancer in animals, after dogs4, Tasmanian devils5 and several bivalve species6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. This raises important questions about the cancer’s origin, the mode of transmission and the long-term impact on fish populations.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10828-6

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10828-6