Cancer cells emerge as ghosts from the past: Literally

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDFeb 8 2011

Cancer is growing by the day worldwide and the cancer cells still manage to evade both the body’s defences and medical intervention. Now an explanation to the phenomenon is provided by an Arizona State University scientist.

Professor Paul Davies, director of the BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at ASU and principal investigator of a major research program funded by the National Cancer Institute designed to bring insights from physical science to the problem of cancer said, “Cancer is not a random bunch of selfish rogue cells behaving badly, but a highly-efficient pre-programmed response to stress, honed by a long period of evolution.” The paper was published online Feb. 7 in the UK Institute of Physics journal Physical Biology.

For the study Davies and Charles Lineweaver from the Australian National University explain why cancer cells deploy so many clever tricks in such a coherent and organized way. They conceptualize that cancer cells use tried-and-tested genetic pathways going back a billion years. This was when loose cells gathered to form life. Dubbed by the authors “Metazoa 1.0,” these early assemblages fell short of the full cell and organ differentiation associated with modern multicellular organisms – like humans. They hypothesize that the genes leading to Metazoa 1.0 are still there, forming an efficient toolkit. Normally these genes are locked but if triggered they come into action as cancers.

Davies said, “Tumors are a re-emergence of our inner Metazoan 1.0, a throwback to an ancient world when multicellular life was simpler… In that sense, cancer is an accident waiting to happen.”

Their finding could mean that cancer could be manageable by newer approaches that rein in these wayward ancient genes. Lineweaver said, “Our new model should give oncologists new hope because cancer is a limited and ultimately predictable atavistic adversary… Cancer is not going anywhere evolutionarily; it just starts up in a new patient the way it started up in the previous one.” “It’s not a one-way street,” says Davies. “Cancer can give us important clues about the nature and history of life itself.”

Professor Nick Hayward, head of the oncogenetics laboratory at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research says the research presents a “novel hypothesis”, but needs more genetic information. “What they are proposing is consistent with general views of the cancer stem cell hypothesis, which is that cells revert back to a state where they are able to function in a more pluripotent [capable of affecting more than one organism] rather than a differentiated state,” he explained.