Roboramma
5th February 2007, 08:07 PM
Carl Zimmer has a new article about the evolution of Cancer. You can read it here (http://carlzimmer.com/articles/2007/articles_2007_cancer.html).
I found this bit quite interesting:
Genes that allow cells to build a better placenta, Crespi and Summers argue, can get hijacked by cancer cells—turned on when they would normally be silent. The ability to stimulate new blood vessel formation and aggressive growth serves a tumor just as it does a placenta. “It’s something naturally liable to be co-opted by cancer cell lineages,” Summers says. “It sets up the opportunity for mutations to create tools for cancer cells to use to take over the body.”
This is really interesting to me. I had wondered how it is that cancer cells could be so good at being cancerous. They don't have any evolutionary history of being cancerous, after all. But things like this can help me to make sense of it.
Also, this is a point that's worth thinking about:
Mice may also be a poor choice for a cancer model because of the way they reproduce. Scientists have bred lab mice to produce more pups at a faster rate than their wild cousins. Such manipulation may have altered the evolutionary trade-off faced by mice, so that they are rewarded for investing energy into growing quickly and reproducing young. At the same time, this artificial selection may be selecting against cancer defenses. “We have changed their life histories by selecting on their timing of reproduction,” Crespi says. The problem, though, is that it's hard to think of a decent alternative. The good thing about mice is that they have short generation times, so it doesn't take that long to see results.
One more little bit that's really cool - though honestly I find myself wanting to quote the whole article!
After about 100,000 years, H. sapiens expanded out of Africa to other continents, bringing the viruses with them. As human populations became isolated from one another, their papillomaviruses did as well. Consequently, the genealogy of human papillomaviruses reflects human genealogy. The oldest lineage of the viruses is most common in living Africans, for example. Native Americans descended from Asians, and their viruses share that kinship.
Neat, eh? So the viruses can help us to find out more about human migration patterns!
Oh, the part about Stickler's sarcoma is really interesting too, but I've already quoted too much!
Check out the article. You can also listen to an interview where he talks about this here (http://sciam.com/podcast/podcast.mp3?e_id=08C8C725-E7F2-99DF-3B1D8D1D334D0A75&ref=p_sciam). And if all this interests you, you can check out his blog (http://www.scienceblogs.com/loom/).
I found this bit quite interesting:
Genes that allow cells to build a better placenta, Crespi and Summers argue, can get hijacked by cancer cells—turned on when they would normally be silent. The ability to stimulate new blood vessel formation and aggressive growth serves a tumor just as it does a placenta. “It’s something naturally liable to be co-opted by cancer cell lineages,” Summers says. “It sets up the opportunity for mutations to create tools for cancer cells to use to take over the body.”
This is really interesting to me. I had wondered how it is that cancer cells could be so good at being cancerous. They don't have any evolutionary history of being cancerous, after all. But things like this can help me to make sense of it.
Also, this is a point that's worth thinking about:
Mice may also be a poor choice for a cancer model because of the way they reproduce. Scientists have bred lab mice to produce more pups at a faster rate than their wild cousins. Such manipulation may have altered the evolutionary trade-off faced by mice, so that they are rewarded for investing energy into growing quickly and reproducing young. At the same time, this artificial selection may be selecting against cancer defenses. “We have changed their life histories by selecting on their timing of reproduction,” Crespi says. The problem, though, is that it's hard to think of a decent alternative. The good thing about mice is that they have short generation times, so it doesn't take that long to see results.
One more little bit that's really cool - though honestly I find myself wanting to quote the whole article!
After about 100,000 years, H. sapiens expanded out of Africa to other continents, bringing the viruses with them. As human populations became isolated from one another, their papillomaviruses did as well. Consequently, the genealogy of human papillomaviruses reflects human genealogy. The oldest lineage of the viruses is most common in living Africans, for example. Native Americans descended from Asians, and their viruses share that kinship.
Neat, eh? So the viruses can help us to find out more about human migration patterns!
Oh, the part about Stickler's sarcoma is really interesting too, but I've already quoted too much!
Check out the article. You can also listen to an interview where he talks about this here (http://sciam.com/podcast/podcast.mp3?e_id=08C8C725-E7F2-99DF-3B1D8D1D334D0A75&ref=p_sciam). And if all this interests you, you can check out his blog (http://www.scienceblogs.com/loom/).