Detritus From Cancer Cells May Infect Healthy Cells 46
bmahersciwriter writes Tiny bubbles of cell membrane — called exosomes — are shed by most cells. Long thought to be mere trash, researchers had recently noticed that they often contain short, regulatory RNA molecules, suggesting that exosomes may be one way that cells communicate with one another. Now, it appears that RNA in the exosomes shed by tumor cells can get into healthy cells and 'transform' them, putting them on the path to becoming cancerous themselves.
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You don't have to go that far and outside of biology for an analogy. It is simply like a virus.
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Which itself can be simply RNA.
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OK- well, nothing that the exosomes don't have.
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And you published your own research into the subject when exactly AC? It is easier to criticize the bus driver from the back of the bus.
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I can still tell if the roast is burnt!
It's called the Maillard reaction, you twit! You can't cook and the chef knows how to get a delicious crust on your roast.
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These "pretentious arrogant twats" have known that exosomes can carry mRNA and miRNA and what exactly as early as 2007. Further, we knew that tumor cells used them to manipulate its environment and how as early as 2010.
And we've known about them since a study published in 1987. It seemed to just carry obsolete proteins from cells called reticulocytes. But we've known for well over a decade that they're used as a form of intercellular transport, especially within the immune system. No legitimate scientis
Assumptions... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Does this say that Cancer may be mildly contagious (Score:1)
" Five of the 11 exosome samples from the patients induced tumour growth when mixed with normal cells and injected into mice"
Seems unlikely, there would be some statistical evidence in caregivers by now.
Which says that probably have a ways to go before really understanding what they have seen here.
Not necessarily. (Score:2)
No, you'd have to be inbred with the cancer 'donor' to not reject their cancer as readily as you'd reject an organ transplant from them.
Not necessarily.
These things aren't carrying the full-blown genome. They're carrying little bits of it - like regulatory switches (or something that functions like that). They ought to be able, occasionally, to covert another person's cells JUST FINE without also marking them as any more foreign than an equivalent cancer naturally arising in that person.
Blocking exosomes (Score:1)
"But trying to slow cancer by blocking exosomes is a difficult proposition, says Al-Nedawii. It is unclear how that would affect normal cells, he notes, and some exosomes from healthy cells have been shown to contain proteins that prevent cancer"
Too bad. I wonder whether they differ enough from non-malicious exosomes that they could be targeted/inhibited specifically with a different kind of chemotherapy drug to silence 'malangelizing' tumor cells.
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There is no "trash". (Score:3)
How is this different from a virus? (Score:4, Interesting)
A small encapsulatory structure containing a fragment of RNA. I'm not a microbiologist, so can someone tell me how these things are different from a virus?
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Viruses don't self-replicate, but they cause themselves to be replicated by cells they have infected.
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And that should have been part of my posting above that asked the question -- these fragments dock with other cells, inject the RNA, and that RNA causes the cells to become cancerous, which, in turn creates more of these little RNA capsulettes.
I'm sure there are some differences between these and classical virus structure, in some way, but given my ignorance of the subject, they walk and talk like viruses.
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And, who knows, might actually be how viruses originated.
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Viruses by definition contain genetic code from outside the host organism. They're invaders who hijack natural reproductive cellular processes, so of course you're going to be able to point to things that cells do that viruses also do. That doesn't make them the same. Proviruses may employ a very-superficially similar mechanism to what is outlined here but lytic viruses work totally differently, i.e. basically exploding the cells they infect by their rampant copypasta.
But I bet it's descended from a virus. (Score:2)
Viruses by definition contain genetic code from outside the host organism.
On the other hand, just as some organelles (i.e. mitochondria, chloroplasts) are apparently the remnant of a microbial infection or ancient symbiosis that became integrated, there are several cellular mechanisms that are apparently remnants of an ancient retrovirus infection, where the bulk of the viral genome was lost but one of its mechanisms was retained and adapted to perform some useful new function.
I'd be willing to bet this is
Jarisch-Herxheimer Reaction (Score:2)
.. This finding is not entirely surprising, as the Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction has been understood for quite some time, particularly relevant to treatment of bacterial infection.
Nutshell, antibodies, natural or pharmaceutical, kill bacteria, causing them to dump endotoxins contained within the bacteria into the bloodstream, often causing the patient to feel significantly worse for a period of time.
Not unlike taking a large garbage bag out of the dumpster, throwing it into your swimming pool, then cutting it
Should be VERY USEFUL for gene & stem cell the (Score:2)
This should be REALLY USEFUL - for gene therapy and stem cell therapy.
One of the big problems with such therapies is how to deliver the modified genes or regulators to the target cells, without converting them to something that would be rejected or otherwise have unintended markers or modifications.
One approach is to deliver genes or regulatory chemicals via a modified virius or using viral capsid proteins to construct an "injector". (A family of methods for turning harvested somatic cells into toti/pluri/
Query (Score:1)