Excerpt:
They live in our houses, drink our water and even sleep in our beds. Cats have become an integral part of many households and share much of our lives.
They also share much of their biology with humans. Pet cats get cancer at a rate similar to humans and often develop the same types of cancer. Just like in humans, as health care and diets have improved, cats are living longer, which puts them at a higher lifetime risk of cancer.
But how similar are cat cancers to human cancers at the genetic level? Research colleagues and I have conducted the largest-ever cancer DNA sequencing study of cat tumours. Our research reveals striking similarities between feline and human cancers, and the results reveal benefits for cats as well as humans.
Newly published work from our international collaboration studied the tumours of 500 cats, including 13 different tumour types. We isolated DNA from these tumours, and mapped the sequence of 1,000 genes that are often found mutated in human cancers.