The rarity of spontaneous cancer in amphibians, and the difficulty of inducing cancer in these lower vertebrates, suggest that they possess an effective system for resistance to the development of cancer. The first part of this narrative presents evidence for cancer resistance in amphibians, and then a variety of studies designed to help understand the physiological basis for this resistance are reviewed. Here, our emphasis is on evidence with regard to the role that apoptosis might play.
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BannerS.H., RubenL.N., & JohnsonR.O. (2007). Bleomycin-induced DNA damage and repair in Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis. Journal of Experimental Zoology307A, 84–90.
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19.
JohnsonR.O., TittleT.V., SefchickM.P.M., ZettergrenL.D., RubenL.N., ClothierR.H., & BallsM. (2013). Comparative studies of apoptosis in Xenopus laevis and mouse thymoma cell lines. ATLA41, 211–218.
