The Evolution of Cancer Suppression: Solutions to Peto's Paradox Revealed by Genomic Analyses of Elephants and Whales

Large body size has evolved at least 11 times during mammalian evolution, exemplified by the proboscidean( elephant) and cetacean (whale) lineages. These species should face a higher lifetime risk of cancer due to the greater probability of oncogenic mutations occurring during somatic evolution in an organism containing 100 to1000X more cells than a human. However, zoo necropsy data reveals elephants have only a 1-3% probability of death from...