Scientists Discover How Pancreatic Cancer Switches Off a 'Tumor Suppressor' Gene (theguardian.com) 25
An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian:
A team of researchers from the UK and US have found that pancreatic cancer is able to shut down molecules in one of the body's most important genes, helping the disease to grow and spread rapidly... Dr Maria Hatziapostolou, of Nottingham Trent University's John van Geest Cancer Research Centre, said: "This work, which has provided new understanding and knowledge of how the cancer behaves, will hopefully help pave the way for potential new treatments in the future...."
For the study, published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances, the researchers analysed healthy as well as pancreatic cancer tissue samples. They found pancreatic cancers triggered a process known as DNA methylation, causing molecules in the normally beneficial HNF4A gene to switch off, allowing tumours to grow extremely quickly. The HNF4A gene is crucial to human health because it helps many of the body's organs to function properly. But the researchers discovered pancreatic cancer can covertly disable the gene's benefits. Hatziapostolou said: "Loss of HNF4A drives pancreatic cancer development and aggressiveness and we now know correlates with poor patient survival."
Scientists from the University of Nottingham, Stanford University and the University of California and Cedars-Sinai medical centre, Los Angeles, were also involved in the project.
The published study calls the targeted HNF4A gene is "a novel tumor suppressor in pancreatic cancer, regulating cancer growth and aggressiveness."
And ultimately, according to the Guardian, pancreatic cancer "is the 12th most common cancer worldwide," according to the Guardian, "with more than half a million people diagnosed every year. It has the worst survival rates of all the most common forms of the disease."
The researchers paper ends with this conclusion. "HNF4A silencing... drives pancreatic cancer development and aggressiveness leading to poor patient survival."
For the study, published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances, the researchers analysed healthy as well as pancreatic cancer tissue samples. They found pancreatic cancers triggered a process known as DNA methylation, causing molecules in the normally beneficial HNF4A gene to switch off, allowing tumours to grow extremely quickly. The HNF4A gene is crucial to human health because it helps many of the body's organs to function properly. But the researchers discovered pancreatic cancer can covertly disable the gene's benefits. Hatziapostolou said: "Loss of HNF4A drives pancreatic cancer development and aggressiveness and we now know correlates with poor patient survival."
Scientists from the University of Nottingham, Stanford University and the University of California and Cedars-Sinai medical centre, Los Angeles, were also involved in the project.
The published study calls the targeted HNF4A gene is "a novel tumor suppressor in pancreatic cancer, regulating cancer growth and aggressiveness."
And ultimately, according to the Guardian, pancreatic cancer "is the 12th most common cancer worldwide," according to the Guardian, "with more than half a million people diagnosed every year. It has the worst survival rates of all the most common forms of the disease."
The researchers paper ends with this conclusion. "HNF4A silencing... drives pancreatic cancer development and aggressiveness leading to poor patient survival."
I always thought his cancer was among the worst (Score:1)
Re:I always thought his cancer was among the worst (Score:4, Insightful)
But Steve Jobs chose not to use the access he had to the best medical services. Something he later regretted. But then it was too late.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
Re: I always thought his cancer was among the wors (Score:3)
It wouldn't have mattered what Jobs did. Even with the best or modern medicine, this cancer has a 5% survival rate at 5 years. My father died from it just 60 days after his diagnosis. He had access to excellent care in France.
The reality is that this cancer is usually diagnosed far too late, by which time it has already metastasized. And there isn't much modern science can do about it when it is stage 4. My father was a scientist, and he knew this. And I bet Steve Jobs was well aware of it, too. Modern medi
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Classifying cancer only by the organ they originate in/on is not enough. There is more than one type of "pancreatic cancer", and different types have different rates.
My grandfather was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told by a doctor he had 6 months, but the doctor had not looked at the details. My grandfather lived about 7 years after that diagnosis, in the 1980s when treatment was not as good as now. He had chemo treatments at the VA hospital IIRC about every 6-8 weeks; the treatment would put him in
Re: I always thought his cancer was among the wors (Score:4, Informative)
It wouldn't have mattered what Jobs did. Even with the best or modern medicine, this cancer has a 5% survival rate at 5 years. My father died from it just 60 days after his diagnosis. He had access to excellent care in France.
Actually, no, Steve Jobs had islet cell pancreatic cancer, which has a 90% survival rate when the cancer has not spread. Had he gotten treatment immediately instead of the macrobiotic diet nonsense, he would probably still be running Apple today.
Re:I always thought his cancer was among the worst (Score:5, Interesting)
It took the life of Steve Jobs, who for all intents and purposes probably had access to the absolute best medical services in the world.
Having access to != using. Steve Jobs's death was effectively suicide. He specifically opted not to follow normal western medicine and went full alternative instead, completely ignoring all advice from actual medical professionals for close to a year after diagnosis.
He was also diagnosed with the specific type of pancreatic cancer that was the easiest to treat. The 5 year survival rate for his type of cancer is over 60%, and his cancer was very non-aggressive, and caught quite early, that's before you take into account his ability to (if he chose to) access the best medicine.
Turns out you can't kill cancer by diet alone. He tried.
Re:I always thought his cancer was among the worst (Score:4, Interesting)
No we can only statistically analyse based on what type of cancer he had and the care he could have received given the time it was identified. The survivability for his cancer stands at 60% for any time of diagnosis globally with any form of medical care. It is public information that they caught the cancer early - he even said so, and he even said he regretted not getting treated properly. Given that he was also wealth (= better medical care than the general population from which the 60% survival rate is derived) and the early diagnosis, and the type of cancer it would have to be a very unlucky case for treatment to have not worked on him.
But I'm just a random dude on the internet. Don't take anything I say seriously. Take medical professionals seriously:
Apple founder Steve Jobs' faith in alternative medicine likely cost him his life, says Barrie Cassileth, chief of integrative medicine at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003. But Jobs, revered as one of the brightest minds on the planet, chose to delay surgery, the only treatment that had a chance to save his life, Cassileth says.
For nine months after his diagnosis, Offit writes, Jobs treated his cancer with acupuncture, herbs, bowel cleansings and a special diet of carrots and fruit juices.
Jobs eventually had surgery, and even a liver transplant. But it was too late.
He died in 2011, eight years after diagnosis.
"He had the only kind of pancreatic cancer that is treatable and curable," Cassileth says. "He essentially committed suicide."
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/... [usatoday.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to not know how to communicate on the internet. Here's a lesson for you: Sarcasm doesn't translate, especially on a site like Slashdot where a lot of people are fucking stupid. So next time you feel the need try and be sarcastic while running the risk of simply looking stupid add a "/s" tag to the end of your post. That is literally why people add it, to denote the fact that their post is sarcastic and not to be taken seriously.
Without it, the only possibility is that you are either stupid, or simp
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Turns out you can't kill cancer by diet alone. He tried.
Broad statement, I don't think we're able to conclude that. Nearly 50% of pharmaceutical drugs are based off rainforest plants. We'd have to know what he took, when, and how it affected the tumor cells. There's quite a lot of evidence (check out google scholar) that various herbs and plants have action on cancer cells. How often do scientists, from scratch, engineer a molecule versus borrow/modify/learn from something in nature?
Feels like we're seeing an increasing number of young and middle aged people dy
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Broad statement, I don't think we're able to conclude that. Nearly 50% of pharmaceutical drugs are based off rainforest plants.
You know damn well what I was talking about, and it wasn't a pharmaceutical drug. Also the evidence you're talking about typically comes in concentrations not possible to ingest normally as part of your diet. This is literally the reason why we purify substances and put them in tiny capsules to begin with.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Jobs also had access to the best "alternative medicine", too. His version of pancreatic cancer was a very rare slow spreading type. He wasted almost a year on crystal power bullshit before he realized he was committing "alternative suicide".
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]
Re:I always thought his cancer was among the worst (Score:4, Insightful)
It took the life of Steve Jobs,
No. The cancer he had was detected very early and his own doctor said he was committing suicide because a single surgery to remove it would have had a 95% survival rate [cancer.org] because it could be excised in it's entirety. In most cases, by the time the cancer has been detected, it has already spread and there is a 1.8% survival rate. He was diagnosed in 2004 but managed to live several years without any kind of medical treatment which is indicative of just how early the found the cancer and just how good his odds were.
Not only that, he told his company that he had actually undergone the surgery.
"I have some personal news that I need to share with you, and I wanted you to hear it directly from me," the email read. "I had a very rare form of pancreatic cancer called an islet cell neuroendocrine tumor, which represents about 1 percent of the total cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed each year, and can be cured by surgical removal if diagnosed in time (mine was). I will not require any chemotherapy or radiation treatments.''
Steve Jobs killed Steve Jobs.
Where does it end? (Score:2)
I wonder how evolution resulted in a process that turns off the HNF4A gene - a beneficial adaptation. I guess it's just caused by a random mutation like any other random mutation. A random mutation causes tumors, another random mutation turns off the tumor growth, then another random mutation turns off the turning off. Where does it end? Maybe it doesn't.
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The details I do not fully understand but histone acetylation and dna methyltransferases look to control this
Re: Where does it end? (Score:2)
So next stage is that we discover that the tumor is a virus factory and that the disease is actually contagious but flies under the radar.
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Just wait until we discover it was started by aliens.
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Though I'm not a doctor, I think your conclusion is correct, and I had been suspecting the exact same thing since long before we knew that HPV does [slashdot.org].
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Some viruses can cause cancer but most occur via some unlucky mutation. Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if more viruses cure cancer than cause it. I mean I think I can name more of the latter than former. The DNA in cells are constantly breaking and repairing it’s very easy for the repair mechanism to F up. Everything has to work in perfect harmony. It is like some kind of a ballet or orchestra. In fact, the question is why cancer doesn’t happen more often. Take for example this gene, HNF
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I'm probably gonna be modded down for trolling here, but I'm serious about this: It wasn't started by evolution, it was started by aliens.
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Pancreatic cancer actually has a little known Discord server where they share mutation strategies.
Explains a Lot (Score:3)
Pancreatic cancer can be astonishingly aggressive (especially given that it's usually not caught until late). My mother in law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Thanksgiving. She didn't make it to Christmas. She barely was able to get a will executed before she was no longer lucid. But there were no symptoms whatsoever until two weeks prior to diagnosis. She was the type who was religious about her health and always got the recommended cancer screenings. Assuming this study is true, it's a triple threat: 1) Late symptom onset, 2) no easy way to screen for it (no equivalent of a colonoscopy or mammogram), 3) apparently flips a broader genetic switch that encourages cancer to spread elsewhere.
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"Covertly" how? (Score:2)
What mechanism normally protects important genes like this from over methylation (silencing)? I mean other than just hopefully dying when something important is turned off...
Since that is what cancer is... uncontrolled growth of non-functional cells.