Table 5.

Human Homologue Cancer Genes That Confer Adaptive Advantage to Certain Organisms.

Organism That the Cancer Gene Was Found Mutated	Human Homologous Gene	Gene Function	Survival Advantage (selected variants)	Study
Prokaryotic
Escherichia coli, Salmonella enterica	MSH2	DNA Mismatch Repair	Antibiotic resistance	LeClerc et al. (1996), and many other studies
Pseudomonas aeruginosa	MSH2	DNA Mismatch Repair	Increased adaptation in biofilms	Lujan et al. (2011), and other studies
Escherichia coli	RAD51	DNA homologous recombination	Ionizing radiation resistance	Byrne et al. (2014)
Escherichia coli	MUTYH	DNA glycosylase (DNA repair)	Survival at nutrient limitation	Notley-McRobb et al. (2002)
Eucaryotic—fungi and protozoans
Candida glabrata	MSH2	DNA Mismatch Repair	Drug resistance	Healey et al. (2016)
Trypanosoma brucei	MSH2	DNA Mismatch Repair	Adaptation to oxidative stress	Grazielle-Silva et al. (2015)
Sacharomyces cerevisiae	MSH2, PMS1	DNA Mismatch Repair	Adaptation to stress conditions	Bui et al. (2015)
Eucaryotic—mammals
Spalax ehrenbergi	TP53	Stress response (DNA damage, hypoxia) leading to growth arrest and apoptosis	Hypoxia stress tolerance	Ashur-Fabian et al. (2004)
Myospalax baileyi, Microtus oeconomus	TP53	Stress response (DNA damage, hypoxia) leading to growth arrest and apoptosis	Survival to hypoxia and cold (Tibet)	Zhao et al. (2013)