Nailed — living cell to aid the treatment of various cancers

from: http://www.thehealthsite.com/news/nailed-living-cell-to-aid-the-treatment-of-various-cancers/

 

A breakthrough discovery into how living cells process and respond to chemical information could help advance the development of treatment for cancers and other cellular disorders resistant to therapy, a research indicates. To achieve this, scientists have unlocked the secret behind the activation of the Ras family of proteins – one of the most important components of cellular signaling networks in biology and major drivers of cancers that are among the most difficult to treat. Ras proteins are essential components of signaling networks that control cellular proliferation, differentiation and survival. Mutations in Ras genes were the first specific genetic alterations linked to human cancers and it is now estimated that nearly a third of all human cancers can be traced to something going wrong with Ras activation. Defective Ras signaling has also been cited as a contributing factor to other diseases, including diabetes and immunological and inflammatory disorders. (Read: Now, a treatment for mouth cancer that kills only cancerous cells!)

‘We were able to perform single molecule studies of Ras activation in a membrane environment and discover a surprising new mechanism though which Ras signaling is activated by Son of Sevenless (SOS) proteins,’ said Jay Groves, a chemist with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) physical biosciences division. The cellular signaling networks of living cells start with receptor proteins residing on a cell’s surface that detect and interact with the environment. (Read: World Cancer Day 2014: Palliative care the future of cancer treatment?)

Signals from these receptors are transmitted to chemical networks within the cell that process the incoming information, make decisions and direct subsequent cellular activities. For cellular signaling networks involving large numbers of protein molecules, the outcome can be directly determined by the process of averaging. ‘Our study showed that, in fact, an important aspect of the SOS signal that activates Ras is encoded in the noise,’ Groves said. ‘The protein’s dynamic fluctuations between different states of activity transmit information, which means we have found a regulatory coupling in a protein signaling reaction that is entirely based on dynamics, without any trace of the signal being seen in the average behaviour,’ he said. (Read: Learn more about cancer chemotherapy)

What are the basic cancer treatment?

Being diagnosed with the dreaded disease – cancer – can flood you with emotions that can be hard to deal with. Many questions run through your mind. What next? Am I going to die? Is there any treatment? Can it be cured? Your doctor will talk you through a number of treatment options. You may hear words like surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy, etc. So, what are these treatments? Which treatment would be best for you? Are there going to be side effects? Are you going to lose your hair? Will you ever be able to have children? This article tries to answer these questions and demystify the various treatment options, their uses, adverse effects, etc.

SURGERY

Surgery remains the foundation of cancer treatment. For most of the cancers that are localised and not spread to other parts of the body, surgery is the best chance for a remission. It is also used for cancer diagnosis and staging (tells how far cancer has spread). Sometimes your doctor may advise you to undergo a surgery to remove a body tissue that is likely to become cancer even though there are no signs of cancer. This is calledpreventive surgery. Surgery may also be used to relieve some of the pain or disability (bowel obstruction, etc.) that your cancer causes. This is known as palliative surgery.

During the surgery for cancer treatment, your surgeon may either remove only the tumour with a clear margin (some normal tissue around the cancer) or the whole organ. Even a single cancer cell left behind can regrow into a new tumour and cause cancer recurrence. The lymph nodes nearest to the cancer may also be removed. Breast cancer (lumpectomy, mastectomy), prostate cancer (prostatectomy) and lung cancer (lobectomy, pneumonectomy) are some of the cancers where surgery may be advised.

CHEMOTHERAPY

Cancer treatment that uses drugs (anticancer drugs) to destroy cancer cells, stops them from spreading and slows their growth is called chemotherapy. Most of them are not specific to cancer cells and target all rapidly dividing cells like bone marrow cells, hair follicles, etc. Generally, normal cells can repair themselves. But many cancer cells are unable to do so and hence they die out. In combination chemotherapy two or more drugs are often given together because they work better together than alone. Sometimes chemotherapy is designed to shrink your tumour to minimise the destruction and increase effectiveness of surgery or radiotherapy. This is called preoperative or neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Whatever line of treatment is finally decided, it is very important that you are assessed to determine whether you are capable of undergoing the treatment. Your doctor may also adjust the dose of drugs accordingly. Read more about Basic cancer treatments: Surgery, Chemotherapy, Radiotherapy and Bone marrow transplants

With inputs from IANS