SCOTTISH scientists have made a possible breakthrough in developing new treatments for leukaemia after discovering that blood cancer began in bats as long ago as 45 million years.
Experts at Glasgow University’s centre for virus research found DNA traces of cancer in the bent winged bat, a development that could lead to new treatments for humans.
The discovery provides a “missing link” in the fossil record of retroviruses, a family of viruses that date back almost half a billion years.
READ MORE: Anger at ITV TV caption for Scotland rugby captain Greig Laidlaw
Known as a “deltaretrovirus”, human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV-1) infects 15 to 20 million people worldwide and can cause leukaemia.
It has long been believed deltaretroviruses have infected humans since prehistoric times.
But because these viruses had no “fossil record” their deeper origins have until now remained a mystery.
Dr Robert Gifford, a senior research fellow at the university, who was involved in the discovery, said it fills the last major gap in the fossil record of retroviruses.
He added: “It provides a means of calibrating the timeline of interaction between deltaretroviruses and their hosts.”
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers conclusive evidence these viruses are between 20 million and 45 million years old.
It also offers key insights into their characteristics and will allow scientists to better understand them in the future.
Mr Gifford said: “Importantly, this finding could also be used as a tool for understanding the mechanisms mammals have evolved specifically to counter the threat from these viruses.
“Understanding the history of these viruses will help scientists to better understand how they affect people and animals now and in the future.”
The deltaretrovirus group that includes HTLV-1 can cause a rare blood cancer called ATLL (Adult T-Cell Leukaemia/Lymphoma (ATLL).
Infection is very rare in the UK and most people who carry the virus will not develop the disease.
The study, led by Dr Daniel Elleder at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, identified the remnants of a deltaretrovirus in the genome of “bent-winged bats”.
They are members of a group of bats called the Minopterids and the virus sequence was found to be integrated in a range of distantly related species – showing it originated 20 to 45 million years ago.
Mr Gifford said: “Deltaviruses infect humans. The genome of the bent-winged bat became publicly available recently and we found the sequence was in all the species before they diverged 20 to
45m years ago.
READ MORE: Anger at ITV TV caption for Scotland rugby captain Greig Laidlaw
“In the long term this could be important clinically because now we know it’s such an old virus it could hep us identify human genes that target it.”
Researchers also found an unusual, and unexplained, feature of the virus that is also present in contemporary deltaretrovruses. The discovery this characteristic has defined deltaretroviruses for millions of years indicates it is somehow key to their biology- and could help scientists study them in the future.
The fossil record is comprised of DNA sequences that are derived from ancient retroviruses - and have been ‘preserved’ in animal genomes.
The study was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here