Cancer gene may have come from plants

GENES that cause cancer may have originated in plants and then “jumped” into humans, according to a new study.

The world’s largest analysis of so-called “jumping genes” has revealed the crucial role of an element known as L1, which the data shows entered humans about 150 million years ago.

The foreign piece of coding has proved particularly dynamic and is responsible for many of the accelerated changes in human evolution. However, without it humans would be free from the genetic mutations that can cause deadly cancers.

Due to the length of time L1 has been present in the human genome – a person’s genetic blueprint – it is impossible to trace with certainty how it “jumped” across species.

But a team at the University of Adelaide, Australia, believe it may have originated in plants, insects or another species that has since become extinct and know L1 did not originate in mammals.

Prof David Adelson, who led the research, said the impact of jumping genes, called retrotransposons, fundamentally altered the understanding of human evolution as a purely parent-offspring process.