Commun Biol 1, 63, https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-018-0059-x (2018).

All seven species of sea turtle can be afflicted by fibropapillomatosis, a herpesvirus that causes epithelial tumors that can be lethal if left to grow unchecked. From tissue sampled from green sea turtles recuperating at the Whitney Laboratory Sea Turtle Hospital in Florida, researchers recently completed the first transcriptomic analysis of fibropapillomatosis tumors to better understand the molecular drivers behind the disease.

It turns out that fibropapillomatosis shares some similarities with human malignancies. Many of the genes and signaling pathways identified in the turtles’ tumors are also observed in human cancers, like basal cell carcinoma. So the team tried out a human cancer treatment on turtles with ocular tumors: recurrence was observed in just 18% of turtles that received the topical treatment after tumor removal, compared to over 60% in those that underwent surgery alone.