Understanding these epigenetic changes provides a possibility to
switch the genes back on, helping the body stop the aggressive tumors from forming.
Not exact matches
They found a mechanism explaining how, in the case of pathological cardiac hypertrophy, cardiomyocytes lose their adult cellular state and regress
back towards their fetal form,
switching on
genes that were originally expressed as the heart develops in the embryo and usually permanently
switched off after birth.
Many of these
genes are usually
switched off in adults, but previous research has shown that in many cancers — including prostate, ovarian, and brain cancer, melanoma, and leukemia — HOX
genes are
switched back on, helping the cancer cells to proliferate and survive.
Genes have to work together and then it gets
back to the
switches that I was talking about before.
Previous work had shown that the DNA region in question, a promoter located on chromosome 17,
switches on a nearby
gene coding for a protein that shuttles serotonin
back into nerve cells so they can reuse it as a neurotransmitter.
Dr. Zhu said loss of the
gene and the protein it expresses may accelerate regeneration by reorganizing how
genes are packaged in the genome so that the cells can more easily
switch back and forth toward a more regenerative state, sort of like a toggle
switch.
Well, they're
back at it, only this time, they're studying what causes those thousands of
genes to
switch on and off.
And cancer cells often
switch the virus
genes back on, probably using them to the cancer's own advantage.
«We have found that the same
genes responsible for tamoxifen resistance in our animals are also turned off in human breast cancer cells that do not respond to the drug,» she says «Because these
genes were epigenetically silenced — meaning they were not irreversibly altered, just
switched off — it was possible to turn them
back on.