Shijing said:Cancer and Electrical Gradients
Cancer cells’ behavior is very tied to electrical signals. They use them as clues to avenues of travel. Electrical fields determine shape changes in the cells. The electrical potential, also, affects what type of cell is produced from stem cells.
Cancer cells have altered electrical activity and use different ion channels and pumps. They have different transporter molecules that affect how the ions travel and, therefore, the electrical gradients. It now appears that these alterations in ion channels are signatures of different cancers and are critical to their formation. Many differences in the effects of cytokines and neurotransmitter signals, also, appear to be tied to these electrical differences. These ion channels influence all aspects of metastasis. In fact, oncogenes (special genes that cause a cell to become cancerous) are related to various different ion channels.
Research in cancer has been increasingly difficult because of the many different mutations that are found in types of cancers, and, more recently, in individuals. The studies have shown that there is a wide range of different mutations that don’t fall into any noticeable patterns.
Dr. Levin’s work points in a different direction entirely. He notes that the gradients and fields of electrical information may be a more important way to understand this process. It is the very space that the cells are living in that appears to be aberrant and causing the cancers. Electrical signaling is key for cells to properly interpret their environment, and when this process goes awry, the cells default to a cancer program.
Studies show that cancer cells can be differentiated from other cells by their electrical properties. The overall electrical status of the cancer cell is determined by the sum of all the ions and pumps. There are a vast amount of different possible genetic scenarios in this basic measurement of electrical status.
But, in fact, the simple electrical status appears to identify cancer cells. Dr. Levin likens this to “pressure” in physics – a group property that can be implemented with a wide variety of underlying molecular details (e.g., different ion channel genes). He notes that the statistical electrical study of cancer electric gradients might be the most information. He notes that the extremely complex analysis of all of the ion channels might not even reveal the critical information (this type of research is currently not even feasible).
Just analyzing messenger RNA and specific proteins made will not determine all the factors altering the global electrical fields because electrical state is a function of the 3D open/closed states of the channels, not merely their presence at the mRNA and protein levels.
The large electrical fields themselves appear to create the regulation that occurs. A study showed that by increasing the electric potential in cancer cells, metastatic activity can be suppressed, despite specific proteins being present that are known to be involved in metastatic activity.
When cancer occurs is this basically saying that the oncogenes rapidly increases the production of these proteins/ ion channels.. causing the cell to divide at a faster rate, maybe even kill that cell all together? Is cancer generally an uncontrollable overgrowth?
When the biological cell generates new proteins (biosynthesis), could this be the point where the cancer is created? I think there is something I'm not grasping here. I've read somewhere that the cell has to mutate, but is this simply the unfolding of the protein, and then this effects other cells?
The protein folding occurs during or after biosynthesis, then the protein speculates its functional shape... BUT the protein can fold incorrectly, it can unfold etcetc... with the outcome of certain diseases.
I may be a little out of my reach here!