Far From ‘Junk,’ DNA Dark Matter Proves Crucial to Health

Far From ‘Junk,’ DNA Dark Matter Proves Crucial to Health - NYTimes.com

Far From ‘Junk,’ DNA Dark Matter Proves Crucial to Health - NYTimes.com

My thoughts on this have begun to be vindicated. Several years ago I theorized that Junk DNA was probably being used in developmental processes. The community always felt that development was primarily dictated by chemical gradients. I have always felt that there is too much exactitude in our structure to rely solely on gradients. I always thought that development is very tightly orchestrated and that Junk DNA is where the details are kept. Studies here will help immensely in cancer research.

Comments

Biological Pathways Symbology

Mutations

This post is based on speculation. It is an attempt at explaining the prevalence of mutations in cancer and their role in perpetuating the cancerous state. The transcriptome of a cell may be classified into two sets: embryonic and adult. There are, of course, conserved elements that form a union of these sets but we are more interested in the embryonic transcriptome exclusive of the union. We now consider the two Nucleotide Excision Repair (NER) mechanisms that have been studied to date: Global Genomic Repair (GGR) and transcription-coupled repair (TCR). Atanassov, et.al. A mutation can take place at or near an adult transcriptome and it is usually repaired by TCR. However, if a mutation takes place at an embryonic transcriptome during the adult stage , TCR can not repair it and, because it is in the adult, GGR may not be able to effect repairs. According to Lans et.al., "Intriguingly, in juvenile and adult animals TCR is the major NER pathway involved in the UV response. Analysi...

What about the unattached cell?

While this procedure is not what I had in mind when I spoke of being able to reprogram the cancer cell, I'm nevertheless glad that reprogramming was found to be possible for the unattached cancer cell. The unattached immune cell is needed everywhere in the body and it would make sense for a cancer derived from an immune cell to differentiate into other immune cells as needed. This is what was found by the Stanford researchers--reprogramming of leukemia cells into normal granulocytes and macrophages via supplied ligands or transcription factors. The initial observation from Stanford came about as a result of a shotgun approach. This approach should also be used for the solid tumor and if their cocktail doesn't do it, I would consider extracting Embryonic Cell Surface molecules from various developmental time points. Finding the right CRF for the differentiation of solid tumors is right around the corner. My next post will be one showing what the CRF theory helps explain wh...

Cancer Theory

Search This Blog