TP53 is the most frequently mutated gene in human cancer. Functionally, p53 is activated by
a host of stress stimuli and, in turn, governs an exquisitely complex anti-proliferative …

Mistakes during cell division frequently generate changes in chromosome content,
producing aneuploid or polyploid progeny cells. Polyploid cells may then undergo abnormal …

Individuals with short telomeres should be at increased risk for cancer, since short telomeres
lead to genomic instability–a hallmark of cancer. However, individuals with long telomeres …

The risk of developing cancer should theoretically increase with both the number of cells
and the lifespan of an organism. However, gigantic animals do not get more cancer than …

Aging is a global decline of physiological functions, leading to an increased susceptibility to
diseases and ultimately death. Maximum lifespans differ up to 200-fold between mammalian …

Evolutionary theory explains why metazoan species are largely protected against the
negative fitness effects of cancers. Nevertheless, cancer is often observed at high incidence …

Transposable elements, often considered to be not important for survival, significantly
contribute to the evolution of transcriptomes, promoters, and proteomes. Reverse …

Gene duplication is a major driver of organismal evolution. Gene retroposition is a
mechanism of gene duplication whereby a gene's transcript is used as a template to …

Cancer suppression is an important feature in the evolution of large and long-lived animals.
While some tumor suppression pathways are conserved among all multicellular organisms …

Background The p53 signalling pathway, which controls cell fate, has been extensively
studied due to its prominent role in tumor development. The pathway includes the tumor …