Senescence & Cancer

[2810712]

The probability of such abnormalities wud be very less as the probability of occurance of mutation/s which will disturb these processes wud be very less.

this is only my guess.............
It appears that by increasing probability of mutations will help stop the tumour growth.
But , such a treatement in vivo may cause cancers in tissues... so this can be used only if we can get only the useful mutations [ i.e. the mutations disturbing these processes........... Is it possible today?

hrushikesh

[Poison]

As much as I know it is not. But maybe one day it can be... who knows...

[2810712]

i have n't heard of mutation resistant cancerous cells ......[. if there R such cells then it will be a good IDa to use them to induce mutation resistance in our other bodycells inorder to avoid cancer ohh but what about EVOLUTION........................... . . . . .]

hrushikesh

[DevGrp]

So the question is can a tumour mutate back into a normal cell with normal cell cyle control?

Simple answer : Maybe, but would you ever know

A tumour is not a single cell, in some ways tumour cells are like micro-organisms. All the cells are busy growing. If one of these cells mutates and stops growing this doesn't stop the tumour growing, natural selection takes over and other faster growing tumour cells grow in its place. The net result is still an actively growing tumour.
So if tumour cells do mutate and stop growing I doubt you would be able to detect it.

[Poison]

So if tumour cells do mutate and stop growing I doubt you would be able to detect it.

why? I mean of course we can not detect a single cell. but what if not only one cell but several cells undergo-or forced to undergo (by some methods)- some useful mutations? (we know that there ARE useful mutations in nature.)

[DevGrp]

It would be possible to detect a single mutation in a single cell.
The problem is that if a few cells in a tumour mutate and stop growing this does not stop the rest of the tumour from continuing to grow. The new tumour cells will carry the genes of the growing tumour cells not the non-growing "mutated" cells -Natural selection

[Poison]

OK. I'm not against that idea. But I think stopping some cells is better than stopping nothing. Isn't it?

[2810712]

Yes, stopping some cells is better than stopping nothing.This will reduces the rate of tumour growth. But ,how can we induce mutation in the tumour in vivo without any considerable harm ? What's ur IDa?

hrushikesh

[Poison]

well, I think causing NO HARM seems to be impossible. but reducing the harm may be.
But in my opinion, the main problem is that how can we know that the mutation we caused is the correct one. does anyone have an idea about it?

[mith]

Well biologists always talk about how one or maybe a couple of genes control cell division and death and how in cancer cells it's always turned on. If we use gene therapy techniques (insert viruses) maybe it would turn them off? Incidentally I remember reading an article a while ago about how some dude pulled bacteria from river muck and used that variable stock to find bacteria that could do specific tasks...say eating oil dumped from oil slicks. Maybe we can use the bacteria to consume cancer cells?

[Poison]

Mithrilhack, I couldnt really understand what you are talking about? Can you please explain it a little bit?

[mith]

The first point I'm trying to make is that we can use viruses to target cancer cells and replace the defective portion of the dna that makes them reproduce. The second point I'm trying to make is to have bacteria that targets cancer cells although I'm probably way in left field on that one.