ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2013
Reversible epigenetic down-regulation of MHC molecules by devil facial tumour disease illustrates immune escape by a contagious cancer.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 120 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
120 citing papers in PubMed, 264 citations in OpenAlex.
- Adaptive Immunity in Marsupials.Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology · 2026Review
- Tyrosine kinase targeting uncovers oncogenic pathway plasticity in Tasmanian devil transmissible cancers.The EMBO journal · 2026Article
- Boost or Bust? The Impact of Supplementation on Functional Genetic Diversity and Selective Processes in Tasmanian Devils.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Advancing cancer research via comparative oncology.Nature reviews. Cancer · 2025Review
- Trichinella spiralis adult excretory-secretory antigen promotes peripheral regulatory T cell differentiation and attenuates experimental colitis via TGF-β-like mechanisms.Parasites & vectors · 2025Article
- No Evidence for Distinct Transcriptomic Subgroups of Devil Facial Tumor Disease (DFTD).Evolutionary applications · 2025Article
- Gene expression in soft-shell clam (Mya arenaria) transmissible cancer reveals survival mechanisms during host infection and seawater transfer.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Differentially expressed growth factors and cytokines drive phenotypic changes in transmissible cancers.Discovery immunology · 2025Article
- When Do Tumours Develop? Neoplastic Processes Across Different Timescales: Age, Season and Round the Circadian Clock.Evolutionary applications · 2024Review
- Plethora of New Marsupial Genomes Informs Our Knowledge of Marsupial MHC Class II.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Divergent DNA methylation patterns and gene expression in MYC andVeterinary world · 2024Article
- The molecular evolution of cancer associated genes in mammals.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- In vitro competition between two transmissible cancers and potential implications for their host, the Tasmanian devil.Evolutionary applications · 2024Article
- Intracellular trafficking of HLA-E and its regulation.The Journal of experimental medicine · 2023Article
- Tasmanian devil cathelicidins exhibit anticancer activity against Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) cells.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Identification of potential resistance mechanisms and therapeutic targets for the relapse of BCMA CAR-T therapy in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma through single-cell sequencing.Experimental hematology & oncology · 2023Article
- The evolution of two transmissible cancers in Tasmanian devils.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Best genome sequencing strategies for annotation of complex immune gene families in wildlife.GigaScience · 2022Article
- Class II transactivator induces expression of MHC-I and MHC-II in transmissible Tasmanian devil facial tumours.Open biology · 2022Article
- Restoring faith in conservation action: Maintaining wild genetic diversity through the Tasmanian devil insurance program.iScience · 2022Article
60 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Contagious cancers that pass between individuals as an infectious cell line are highly unusual pathogens. Devil facial tumor disease (DFTD) is one such contagious cancer that emerged 16 y ago and is driving the Tasmanian devil to extinction. As both a pathogen and an allograft, DFTD cells should be rejected by the host-immune response, yet DFTD causes 100% mortality among infected devils with no apparent rejection of tumor cells. Why DFTD cells are not rejected has been a question of considerable confusion. Here, we show that DFTD cells do not express cell surface MHC molecules in vitro or in vivo, due to down-regulation of genes essential to the antigen-processing pathway, such as β2-microglobulin and transporters associated with antigen processing. Loss of gene expression is not due to structural mutations, but to regulatory changes including epigenetic deacetylation of histones. Consequently, MHC class I molecules can be restored to the surface of DFTD cells in vitro by using recombinant devil IFN-γ, which is associated with up-regulation of the MHC class II transactivator, a key transcription factor with deacetylase activity. Further, expression of MHC class I molecules by DFTD cells can occur in vivo during lymphocyte infiltration. These results explain why T cells do not target DFTD cells. We propose that MHC-positive or epigenetically modified DFTD cells may provide a vaccine to DFTD. In addition, we suggest that down-regulation of MHC molecules using regulatory mechanisms allows evolvability of transmissible cancers and could affect the evolutionary trajectory of DFTD.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.