3 ms·

Can we end up with a situation like antimicrobial resistance, where cancer itself evolves to resist these new treatments?

ulbu 4mo ago
evolution is a wrong concept to approach it. cancer is not a separate life form, but a bug in the regeneration system of a complicated life form. it doesn’t exist outside of it, it cannot propagate.
- 8note 4mo ago
  the single celled dog might beg to differ. sometimes a cancer can then survive on its own back as a single celled organism
- throwaway81523 4mo ago
  I've heard that some cancers spread by viruses. Viruses do evolve. No idea if that says anything about cancer evolving.
- epistasis 4mo ago
  Cancer researchers generally refer to it as evolution, and I've never heard any complaints from the population geneticists or evo-devo folks about it, so I don't think it's a tremendously controversial way to talk about it. See for example https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1907-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1907-7
- nly 4mo ago
  You might want to read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
nicwilson 4mo ago
Absolutely, this is selective pressure at work on cells with malregulated genetics. Most typically, this is in the form of drug efflux pumps, but you can definitely get more specific resistances. Ways to avoid specific resistance include multiple treatments simultaneously, since the probability of generating resistance to both is the product of the probability of resistance either.
epistasis 4mo ago
Yes, and one of the hallmarks of cancer is a removal of the usual DNA damage checkpoints. Cells have sensors that detect damaged DNA and stop cell division, and once that is gone evolution happens on an extremely accelerated times scale. In lung cancer, for example, we have developed entire series of drugs to go after successive resistance mutations inside the EGFR gene. When we first started getting good at sequencing the DNA of tumors, I remember initial reports of taking samples across the 3D space of a tumor and finding great spatial heterogeneity in the tumor genomes. I'm actually most excited for using this drug in combination with colon cancer, where KRAS mutation is a common drug resistance evolution in response to drugs that target the gene EFGR (though cancer researchers may all have their favorites to go after, colon cancer went after my family especially hard).
pestatije 4mo ago
thats environmental evolution...what happens here is cell "evolution" within a specific body

ulbu 4mo ago

evolution is a wrong concept to approach it. cancer is not a separate life form, but a bug in the regeneration system of a complicated life form. it doesn’t exist outside of it, it cannot propagate.

8note 4mo ago
the single celled dog might beg to differ. sometimes a cancer can then survive on its own back as a single celled organism
throwaway81523 4mo ago
I've heard that some cancers spread by viruses. Viruses do evolve. No idea if that says anything about cancer evolving.
epistasis 4mo ago
Cancer researchers generally refer to it as evolution, and I've never heard any complaints from the population geneticists or evo-devo folks about it, so I don't think it's a tremendously controversial way to talk about it. See for example https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1907-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1907-7
nly 4mo ago
You might want to read this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa

nicwilson 4mo ago

Absolutely, this is selective pressure at work on cells with malregulated genetics. Most typically, this is in the form of drug efflux pumps, but you can definitely get more specific resistances. Ways to avoid specific resistance include multiple treatments simultaneously, since the probability of generating resistance to both is the product of the probability of resistance either.

epistasis 4mo ago

Yes, and one of the hallmarks of cancer is a removal of the usual DNA damage checkpoints. Cells have sensors that detect damaged DNA and stop cell division, and once that is gone evolution happens on an extremely accelerated times scale. In lung cancer, for example, we have developed entire series of drugs to go after successive resistance mutations inside the EGFR gene. When we first started getting good at sequencing the DNA of tumors, I remember initial reports of taking samples across the 3D space of a tumor and finding great spatial heterogeneity in the tumor genomes. I'm actually most excited for using this drug in combination with colon cancer, where KRAS mutation is a common drug resistance evolution in response to drugs that target the gene EFGR (though cancer researchers may all have their favorites to go after, colon cancer went after my family especially hard).

pestatije 4mo ago

thats environmental evolution...what happens here is cell "evolution" within a specific body