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Mitochondria do produce a lot of free radicals. Probably energy expensive to maintain cells like that.
by ivalm 7y ago
Mitochondria do produce a lot of free radicals. Probably energy expensive to maintain cells like that.
- rolph 7y agonot only energy expensive but free radicals do genetic damage, and a this requires the second budget for a set of enzymes to counteract the damages and scrub out FR's
- lumost 7y agoWhy isn't Heart Cancer more common if it's producing so many free radicals? Are there other mechanisms blocking genetic damage?
- dodobirdlord 7y agoMuscle cells don't replicate past early childhood development, they just get bigger and add more nuclei. So muscle cancers are extremely rare compared to cancers of other tissues.
- rolph 7y agoeach nucleus contains a full genomic content. muscles are more of a "myosynsynctium" than a group of cells. there are cohorts of cells that are more prone to becoming cancer due to thier developmental origins and the complement of developmental mechanisms that can be reactivated. things such as cell adhesion, and cell migration through tissue dermal cells are good at this as they do these things over the course of development. muscles are built where they will live so these features are inhibited somewhat more completely and harder to "switch on or off"
- ggreer 7y agoNeat, but why don't all the cells in our body do that? What's the trade-off that goes the other way for cells most likely to get cancer (prostate, breast, lungs, lymph nodes)?
- rolph 7y agoyes ! this is the nature of superoxide dismutase. basically free radicals are a price paid for generating ATP. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superoxide_dismutase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superoxide_dismutase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superoxide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superoxide
- lordnacho 7y agoIs skeletal muscle cancer common? I haven't heard of it though perhaps it has another name.
- rolph 7y agorhabdomyosarcoma
- labster 7y agoFree as in radicals, not free as in beer.