Work

No Evidence for Distinct Transcriptomic Subgroups of Devil Facial Tumor Disease ( DFTD )

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: ) population at the regional level since it was first observed in 1996. There are currently no treatment options for the disease, and research efforts are focused on vaccine development. Although DFT1 is clonal, phylogenomic studies have identified different genetic variants of the pathogen. We postulated that different genetic strains may have different gene expression profiles and would therefore require different vaccine components. Here, we aimed to test this hypothesis by applying two types of unsupervised clustering (hierarchical and k-means) to 35 DFT1 transcriptomes selected from the disease's four major phylogenetic clades. The two algorithms produced conflicting results, and there was low support for either method individually. Validation metrics, such as the Gap statistic method, the Elbow method, and the Silhouette method, were ambiguous, contradictory, or indicated that our dataset only consisted of a single cluster. Collectively, our results show that the different phylogenetic clades of DFT1 all have similar gene expression profiles. Previous studies have suggested that transcriptomic differences exist between tumours from different locations. However, our study differs in that it considers both tumor purity and genotypic clade when analysing differences between DFTD biopsies. These results have important implications for therapeutic development, as they indicate that a single vaccine or treatment approach has the potential to be effective for a large cross-section of DFT1 tumors. As one of the largest studies to use transcriptomics to investigate phenotypic variation within a single contagious cancer, it also provides novel insight into this unique group of diseases.

Source: Evolutionary Applications

DOI: 10.1111/eva.70091

Authors: Cleopatra Petrohilos, Emma Peel, Kimberley C. Batley, Samantha Fox, Carolyn J. Hogg, Katherine Belov

Institutions: The University of Sydney, Australian Research Council, Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania

Language: English

Topic: Veterinary Oncology Research

Subfield: Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine

Field: Medicine

Domain: Health Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $4,320