Telltale Mutation
Recurring brain cancer explained
A glioblastoma tumor (green) formed in a mouse's brain.
New work could help explain why a deadly type of brain cancer recurs easily even after surgery, radiation and chemotherapy have apparently banished it. Fully developed brain cells, not just stem cells, may take on new identities to evade therapy and come back later, the study suggests. Just two changes to cancer-related genes in some adult brain cells are enough to spur the genesis of glioblastomas, Inder Verma, a molecular biologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and colleagues report online October 18 in Science. "To me it says something very scary," says Martine Roussel, a molecular biologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. "With just the right combination of hits you can become a glioma," as glioblastomas are sometimes called. Roussel, who studies a different type of brain cancer called medullablastoma, says that the new study delves into a debate about which types of cells can lead to cancer. Some forms of cancer seem to start only when mutations build up in specific cells. Previous studies had indicated that glioblastoma may result when genes within naturally occurring stem cells in the brain are mutated. But the new study indicates that glioblastoma can originate in at least two types of mature brain cells, and which genes are struck by mutations is more important than the type of cell, Roussel says.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments