12 ms·

I do wish people were more aware of how common pre-cancer cells are. Generally speaking, there are about eight major functional changes in the cell needed to go

I do wish people were more aware of how common pre-cancer cells are. Generally speaking, there are about eight major functional changes in the cell needed to go from 'cell' to 'cancer cell', and on average, each takes about a decade to occur. When I first learned about this at the age of 20, I already had a bunch of cells that were 2/8 of the way to cancer, essentially. (Not counting mutations I was already born with. Most of us are, which is why cancer is common before age 80.) It's fair to say that it's a "failure of immunity," though it's a bit more varied than that. You might have started with a failure of the immune system, in the sense that something like autoimmune proliferative syndrome means cells that should be committing suicide aren't, and so eventually you have cancer. More common is a "normal" immune system, and a cancer cell lineage that evolves to be invisible to it. Either way, it's fair to say that normal cells and cancer cells are divided by the fence of "immunity," and cancer doesn't happen until the cancer cells hop the fence or the fence falls down. I suspect the fear -> cortisol -> immune suppression -> cancer pathway is probably, quantitatively, pretty small. Stress does have negative effects on the immune system, in the broad sense, but granularly it gets more complicated. For instance, one of the key cells involved in keeping cancer at bay is the CD8+ cell. While total CD4/CD8 t-cell counts seem to trend down when cortisol trends up, CD8 T-cell counts actually trend up. We know that Natural Killer T-cell activity drops in response to cortisol, in isolation, but that it has differing effects on NK cells in different organs. In some organs, it had no impact at all, due to shielding by other inflammatory signals. It's probably true that there are some people who, if they didn't stress out about getting cancer, wouldn't have gotten cancer. I suspect that number is very, very, very low, though, and I'd certainly never tell a patient (or believe about a patient) "if they'd had different thoughts, they wouldn't have cancer." I can't rule it out as never having happened. It's not physically impossible. But, compared to all of the other things that play a role in cancer development, it's probably not worth mentioning. (I feel like I should clarify on the first paragraph: in short, every cell is somewhere on the continuum between 'normal cell' and 'cancer cell'. The only difference between the two is time. Like that Palahniuk quote, "On a long enough timeline, everyone you love is dead"? Well, "on a long enough timeline, every cell is a cancer cell.")

hutzlibu 6y ago
", there are about eight major functional changes in the cell needed to go from 'cell' to 'cancer cell'" Can you summarize them, if you haven't done so elsewhere? Anyway thanks. And you should consider writing a book about it ..
- wittyreference 6y ago
  Sure! So, this is just a conceptual schema, and not a hard-and-fast rule. It was first published by Robert A. Weinberg in 2000 as "the six hallmarks of cancer", as an attempt to distill down everything we knew about cancer genesis into something we could understand as a model. He's considered the grand high poobah of oncogenetics. There've been people fretting at the details of his model since then, so it's grown a bit. Also worth noting that this model was basically built on solid tumors. Liquid cancer (cancers of the blood - e.g., leukemia) have a different, more poorly studied path, though the broad brush-strokes seem to be the same. The original model was: -Evading apoptosis -Self-sufficiency in growth signals -Ignoring anti growth signals -Autonomous, ongoing angiogenesis -Tissue invasion -Limitless replicative potential The version that I learned in grad school was up to 8 hallmarks. Apparently it's evolved a bit more since then, and the most recent version being bandied about is: -Evading apoptosis -Self-sufficiency in growth signals -Ignoring anti-growth signals -Autonomous, ongoing angiogenesis -Tissue invasion -Limitless replicative potential -Avoiding immune destruction -Tumor-promoting inflammation -Genome instability and mutation -Deregulated cellular energy metabolism Honestly, I'm not sure the ten hallmark model really adds anything - I'd argue that the four additions fall neatly under the old six. But whatever - it's just a model, and doesn't change the granular reality at all. To summarize each of the hallmarks in brief: (1) Evading Apoptosis. Cells have a number of mechanisms that basically say "something's off here, I should kill myself now." For instance, when DNA repair enzymes get upregulated, so does p53 - if p53 tips over a key value, it starts setting off the suicide pathway. So, "too much DNA damage" = "cell offs itself rather than propagating damaged DNA." There are actually a bunch of proteins in the cell see-sawing here, in response to internal and external signals, and if the "kill yourself" signal tips the see-saw, the cell dies. Pretty much any mutation in the cell suicide pathway predisposes to cancer. For instance, an extrinsic trigger of apoptosis is binding of what's called the FAS Ligand to the FAS Receptor (a big part of how immune cells regulate their own suicide, to prevent auto-immunity.) A mutation in FAS Ligand, or FAS Receptor, or anything downstream of them, will predispose to autoimmune disease and cancer. Another one is the anti-apoptotic protein BCL-2, which you'll find overexpressed in something like half of all cancers. Since cancer development triggers so many "kill me now!" signals, turning this pathway off is a hallmark of cancer development. The cancer will usually do so through a combination of over-expressing anti-apoptotic proteins, and under-expressing pro-apoptotic proteins. Do we make use of this knowledge for therapy? Sure do. One therapy is a BCL-2 inhibitor, Venetoclax. Methotrexate, which slows down cell proliferation, also causes adenosine accumulation that can trigger apoptosis. These drugs have varied benefits: when you target the specific broken pathway in the cell, they're excellent (e.g., BCL-2 in CLL). Cancers are good at evolving around these therapies though, so they're not used as mono-therapy. (2) Self sufficiency in growth signals. Normal cells don't just grow on a whim - they require signaling from cells around them and from distant parts of the body, to ensure things are kept regulated. Once a cell starts generating its own growth signals, though - like an army in revolt, giving its own orders - then you're on the path to cancer. This is one of the key mutations that gives rise to the "atavistic cell" description of cancer - they've thrown off their shackles, and become wild cells again! Well, not really - even wild cells are careful about when to expend the resources to proliferate. Bacteria commonly depend on their neighbors - using whats called quorum sensing molecules - to control their growth. Heedless, runaway growth is not the norm even in 'wild' cells. (3) Ignoring anti-growth signals. Most everything in the cell is the process of see-saw balances: there are always signals pushing in each direction, compensating biochemical pathways, and shifting balances. Growth is no exception: how the cell acts is in response to a whole bunch of pro- and anti-growth signals, and most of the time it moves in the direction that they're pressured to by the consensus. Well, if one of the hallmarks of cancer is like an army giving itself orders (independence from external growth signals), another is the active refusal to heed anti-growth signals (shutting down lines of communication with the Joint Chiefs of Staff). This may be because key anti-growth receptors are broken; it may be because something downstream of those receptors is broken. The key is, though, that between "I'll tell myself when to grow" and "I don't care what anyone else says to the contrary," the cell is now positioned to grow and grow and grow. (4) Autonomous Angiogenesis. Tissues need oxygen and nutrients and stuff. However, that stuff really only travels a tiny distance from the smallest blood vessels - capillaries - because it has to leave the capillaries via diffusion, and the time for something to travel by diffusion increases as the square of the distance. So, going 4mm will take 4x longer than going 2mm. Forget about feeding tissues 1cm away from a capillary - it's not happening. Usually, outside of embryogenesis, blood vessel construction is rare - it happens when a blood vessel is damaged, and it secretes growth signals to build a new vessel. (In fact, in a well regulated environment, this is often followed by signals to kill some of the new vessels, too - which is why a fresh scar is red and angry, but an old one is pale and avascular. The blood vessels that came in to supply immune cells and fibroblasts actually regress.) So, anyway, here's our tumor - replicating like wild, if it can, not caring if it grows too far from a capillary. One of the consequences is rampant cell death. Tumors aren't healthy, they're usually riddled with dying cells. Another consequence is shifting to anaerobic metabolism - which, yay, don't need blood supply so much. But it's also massively less energy-efficient than oxygen, so any tumor cells that can make use of oxygen supply will tend to outreplicate those that can't. So what happens? Almost inevitably, they start secreting stuff like VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) to grow their own blood vessels. These vessels are messy and leaky and prone to breaking, but they're so much better than nothing, and our tumor is off to the races. Do we target angiogenesis in therapy? Yeah, there's a shit-ton of drugs that inhibit angiogenesis (you might have heard about bevacizumab a lot lately - we've also given it to Covid patients at high risk of hospitalization, since nothing in the body ever only has one effect). I'll continue in another post; I'm not sure if HN has length limits.

hutzlibu 6y ago

", there are about eight major functional changes in the cell needed to go from 'cell' to 'cancer cell'" Can you summarize them, if you haven't done so elsewhere? Anyway thanks. And you should consider writing a book about it ..

wittyreference 6y ago
Sure! So, this is just a conceptual schema, and not a hard-and-fast rule. It was first published by Robert A. Weinberg in 2000 as "the six hallmarks of cancer", as an attempt to distill down everything we knew about cancer genesis into something we could understand as a model. He's considered the grand high poobah of oncogenetics. There've been people fretting at the details of his model since then, so it's grown a bit. Also worth noting that this model was basically built on solid tumors. Liquid cancer (cancers of the blood - e.g., leukemia) have a different, more poorly studied path, though the broad brush-strokes seem to be the same. The original model was: -Evading apoptosis -Self-sufficiency in growth signals -Ignoring anti growth signals -Autonomous, ongoing angiogenesis -Tissue invasion -Limitless replicative potential The version that I learned in grad school was up to 8 hallmarks. Apparently it's evolved a bit more since then, and the most recent version being bandied about is: -Evading apoptosis -Self-sufficiency in growth signals -Ignoring anti-growth signals -Autonomous, ongoing angiogenesis -Tissue invasion -Limitless replicative potential -Avoiding immune destruction -Tumor-promoting inflammation -Genome instability and mutation -Deregulated cellular energy metabolism Honestly, I'm not sure the ten hallmark model really adds anything - I'd argue that the four additions fall neatly under the old six. But whatever - it's just a model, and doesn't change the granular reality at all. To summarize each of the hallmarks in brief: (1) Evading Apoptosis. Cells have a number of mechanisms that basically say "something's off here, I should kill myself now." For instance, when DNA repair enzymes get upregulated, so does p53 - if p53 tips over a key value, it starts setting off the suicide pathway. So, "too much DNA damage" = "cell offs itself rather than propagating damaged DNA." There are actually a bunch of proteins in the cell see-sawing here, in response to internal and external signals, and if the "kill yourself" signal tips the see-saw, the cell dies. Pretty much any mutation in the cell suicide pathway predisposes to cancer. For instance, an extrinsic trigger of apoptosis is binding of what's called the FAS Ligand to the FAS Receptor (a big part of how immune cells regulate their own suicide, to prevent auto-immunity.) A mutation in FAS Ligand, or FAS Receptor, or anything downstream of them, will predispose to autoimmune disease and cancer. Another one is the anti-apoptotic protein BCL-2, which you'll find overexpressed in something like half of all cancers. Since cancer development triggers so many "kill me now!" signals, turning this pathway off is a hallmark of cancer development. The cancer will usually do so through a combination of over-expressing anti-apoptotic proteins, and under-expressing pro-apoptotic proteins. Do we make use of this knowledge for therapy? Sure do. One therapy is a BCL-2 inhibitor, Venetoclax. Methotrexate, which slows down cell proliferation, also causes adenosine accumulation that can trigger apoptosis. These drugs have varied benefits: when you target the specific broken pathway in the cell, they're excellent (e.g., BCL-2 in CLL). Cancers are good at evolving around these therapies though, so they're not used as mono-therapy. (2) Self sufficiency in growth signals. Normal cells don't just grow on a whim - they require signaling from cells around them and from distant parts of the body, to ensure things are kept regulated. Once a cell starts generating its own growth signals, though - like an army in revolt, giving its own orders - then you're on the path to cancer. This is one of the key mutations that gives rise to the "atavistic cell" description of cancer - they've thrown off their shackles, and become wild cells again! Well, not really - even wild cells are careful about when to expend the resources to proliferate. Bacteria commonly depend on their neighbors - using whats called quorum sensing molecules - to control their growth. Heedless, runaway growth is not the norm even in 'wild' cells. (3) Ignoring anti-growth signals. Most everything in the cell is the process of see-saw balances: there are always signals pushing in each direction, compensating biochemical pathways, and shifting balances. Growth is no exception: how the cell acts is in response to a whole bunch of pro- and anti-growth signals, and most of the time it moves in the direction that they're pressured to by the consensus. Well, if one of the hallmarks of cancer is like an army giving itself orders (independence from external growth signals), another is the active refusal to heed anti-growth signals (shutting down lines of communication with the Joint Chiefs of Staff). This may be because key anti-growth receptors are broken; it may be because something downstream of those receptors is broken. The key is, though, that between "I'll tell myself when to grow" and "I don't care what anyone else says to the contrary," the cell is now positioned to grow and grow and grow. (4) Autonomous Angiogenesis. Tissues need oxygen and nutrients and stuff. However, that stuff really only travels a tiny distance from the smallest blood vessels - capillaries - because it has to leave the capillaries via diffusion, and the time for something to travel by diffusion increases as the square of the distance. So, going 4mm will take 4x longer than going 2mm. Forget about feeding tissues 1cm away from a capillary - it's not happening. Usually, outside of embryogenesis, blood vessel construction is rare - it happens when a blood vessel is damaged, and it secretes growth signals to build a new vessel. (In fact, in a well regulated environment, this is often followed by signals to kill some of the new vessels, too - which is why a fresh scar is red and angry, but an old one is pale and avascular. The blood vessels that came in to supply immune cells and fibroblasts actually regress.) So, anyway, here's our tumor - replicating like wild, if it can, not caring if it grows too far from a capillary. One of the consequences is rampant cell death. Tumors aren't healthy, they're usually riddled with dying cells. Another consequence is shifting to anaerobic metabolism - which, yay, don't need blood supply so much. But it's also massively less energy-efficient than oxygen, so any tumor cells that can make use of oxygen supply will tend to outreplicate those that can't. So what happens? Almost inevitably, they start secreting stuff like VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) to grow their own blood vessels. These vessels are messy and leaky and prone to breaking, but they're so much better than nothing, and our tumor is off to the races. Do we target angiogenesis in therapy? Yeah, there's a shit-ton of drugs that inhibit angiogenesis (you might have heard about bevacizumab a lot lately - we've also given it to Covid patients at high risk of hospitalization, since nothing in the body ever only has one effect). I'll continue in another post; I'm not sure if HN has length limits.