A whole new level of control of cancer gene activity within tumors, has been described by researchers as ‘dark matter’.
It was recently discovered and published in two major studies at the same time in Nature that cancers can evolve to become more aggressive without relying on DNA mutations.
Testing cancers for just the DNA mutations can skip this level of control and therefore fail to predict how cancers may behave and respond to treatment, the researchers say.
Both studies revealed how a level of gene control called ‘epigenetics’ pays a central role in the progression and development of bowel cancer.
The research was led by scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, Human Technopole in Milan and Queen Mary University of London. It was funded by Wellcome, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Cancer Research UK.
Dark matter could accurately predict cancer’s behavior
The researchers say their findings could change the way cancer is thought about and the way it is treated – and lead to new forms of tests that predict cancer’s behavior more accurately.
Content continues below
Related Content
The chemical changes that occur to the three-dimensional structure of DNA through epigenetics, do not change the DNA code but it can control access to genes. The researchers said it has increasingly been recognized as playing a major role in the development of cancer.
The influence of epigenetic control on how bowel cancers grow and develop over time was tracked for the first time thanks to the scientists’ work. They managed to track this separately from the influence of mutations to the DNA code, which were mapped at the same time.
For every cancer they examined, the researchers noted important epigenetic changes that they noted were involved in the disease’s ability to evolve and become more aggressive.
‘Something we liken to cancer’s dark matter’
Professor Trevor Graham, director of the center for evolution and cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research, said: “We’ve unveiled an extra level of control for how cancers behave – something we liken to cancer’s ‘dark matter’. For years our understanding of cancer has focused on genetic mutations which permanently change the DNA code. But our research has shown that the way the DNA folds up can change which genes are read without altering the DNA code and this can be very important in determining how cancers behave.
“I hope our work will change the way we think about cancer and its treatment – and should ultimately affect the way patients are treated. Genetic testing for cancer mutations only gives us part of the picture about a person’s cancer – and is blind to ‘epigenetic’ changes to how genes are read. By testing for both genetic and epigenetic changes, we could, potentially, much more accurately predict which treatments will work best for a particular person’s cancer.”
The researchers collected 1,373 samples from 30 bowel cancers and looked at the epigenetic changes as the cancers evolved which was recorded in the first paper.
Content continues below
Related Content
Cancer evolution
They noted that epigenetic changes are highly common in cells which have become cancerous and occur around genes already known to drive cancer.
They found they are heritable, meaning they can be inherited by cells with each cell division, and that they contribute to cancer evolution and they influence how cancer cells accumulate DNA mutations.
The changes were also present in cancer cells that had survival advantages which helped them to grown more than other cells.
Survival advantages
In the second paper, the researchers were trying to understand why cancer cells within the same tumor can be so different to one another, a characteristic the researchers said, helps some cells develop survival advantages becoming resistant to cancer treatments.
The researchers, wanted to understand whether the diversity of cell types within a tumor was governed by variation in the DNA code or something else. DNA sequences in diverse samples
The researchers wanted to understand whether the diversity of cell types within a tumor is governed by variation in the DNA code, or something else. They looked at the DNA sequence in diverse samples taken from different parts of the same tumor.
They found that less than 2% of changes in the DNA code in independent areas of a tumor were associated with changes in gene activity and that variation in cancer cell characteristics throughout tumors is often governed by factors other than DNA mutations.
Specific epigenetics
The researchers point out that more work needs to be done to determine cause and effect between specific epigenetic changes and modifications to cancer behavior and their findings are observational in nature.
Together, the researchers say that the papers represent a fundamental advance in understanding cancer. They stress DNA mutations are essential for ‘setting the scene’ for a cancer’s development and the way it evolves but importantly note that much of the subsequent behavior of cancer cells is determined by other factors such as epigenetics.
The researchers believe this could help explain why DNA tests don’t always predict how cancers are going to respond to treatment in order to help doctors tailor treatments for patients more effectively. They say it could also give reason as to why some environmental exposures can cause cancer without leading to mutations in the DNA code.
DNA mutations
Professor Andrea Sottoriva, head of the computational biology research centre at human technopole in Milan, who co-led the research, said: “When we study how cancers evolve over time, we tend to look at DNA mutations, but it’s clear that epigenetic changes also enable cancer to adapt and develop a survival advantage over other cells.
“We have for the first time been able to map epigenetic changes alongside the accumulation of DNA mutations as a colorectal tumor evolves. This provides exciting opportunities to create new treatments for cancer that don’t target the effects of DNA mutations, but instead the epigenetic changes which determine how genes are read.”
‘Open’s up exciting future opportunities’
Professor Kristian Helin, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research, and a world leader in the study of epigenetics, said: “This (dark matter) discovery represents an exciting advance in our understanding of cancer biology. Cancer’s ability to rapidly change and evolve is a key reason why it is so hard to treat. Exactly how cancer cells do this, and the factors that control how it can adapt to evade treatment, is not well understood.
“This important work demonstrates the potential role of epigenetic regulation in the development of cancer and the complexity of its behavior. It opens exciting future opportunities to assess cancer using both genetic and epigenetic tests, and eventually to treat cancer with epigenetic-directed drugs.”
The Institution of Cancer Research is is one of the world’s most influential cancer research institutes and can now add ‘dark matter’ to its list of research achievements while it continues researching how to treat the differences between cancers.
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.
There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.
The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.
Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.
Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.
Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.
“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.
Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.
But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.
That includes his own teenage daughter.
“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.
It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.
“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”
___
AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.
New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.
“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.
The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.
Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.
It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.
Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.
Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.
The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.
The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Product Name: Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten
All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors.
Turn Your Wife Into Your Personal Sex Kitten is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.
