Cancer as "rejuvenescence"

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Svetlana V Ukraintseva, Anatoly I Yashina

Abstract

Comparative analysis of malignant and senescent cells shows that their phenotypic features are in many instances contrary. Cancer cells do not "age"; their metabolic and growth characteristics are opposite to those observed with cellular aging (both replicative and functional). In many such characteristics, cancer cells resemble embryonic cells. One can say that cancer manifests itself as a local uncontrolled "rejuvenation" in an organism. Available evidence from human and animal studies suggests that the opposite phenotypic features of aging and cancer arise from the opposite regulation of common genes, such as those participating in apoptosis/growth arrest or in growth signal transduction pathways in the cell. For instance, in aging cells and organisms, proto-oncogenes are often downregulated, while tumor suppressors are permanently expressed. In cancer cells the situation is just the opposite: the proto-oncogenes are commonly overexpressed, while tumor suppressors are downregulated. This fact may have various applications for the development of new antiaging and anticancer treatments. First, genes that are oppositely regulated in cancer and aging could be candidate targets for antiaging interventions. Their "cancerlike" regu...Continue Reading

References

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Citations

Oct 1, 2005·Nature Reviews. Cancer·Vladimir N AnisimovAnatoly I Yashin
Apr 30, 2010·Rejuvenation Research·Svetlana V UkraintsevaAnatoli I Yashin
Aug 15, 2006·Experimental Gerontology·Mikhail D GolubovskyAnatoly I Yashin
Feb 7, 2006·Biosensors & Bioelectronics·Avraham Rasooly, James Jacobson
Feb 16, 2012·Natural Product Reports·Jiyong Hong, Hendrik Luesch

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