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25 Comments
- justdru, on 07/20/2009, -0/+10This could have severe implications on how truthful blood tests really are. Existing pre-screens for cancer, heart disease, and others could possibly show false negatives because of these results. It will be interesting to see how this plays out!
- DontThinkSo, on 07/19/2009, -3/+11"So far, Schweitzer said it's unclear whether these BAK1 differences in the blood and aortic tissue are the consequence of RNA editing, which changes the messenger RNA but not the gene, or DNA editing, which involves differences in the gene itself."
In other words, nothing new here. - maliath, on 07/20/2009, -0/+5Cancer is an all encompassing term for a general set of diseases. There will likely never be a cure for "cancer", but merely cures for many different types of cancer.
If one says there is a "cure for cancer", it's almost like saying there's a "cure for viruses." - bbeep, on 07/20/2009, -1/+5Not really. That is just their next step. They used cDNA, which means they took the protein, sequenced it (found equivalent mRNA) and then constructed a complementary DNA sequence from the mRNA. Problem is, the mRNA code of a protein doesn't tell the whole story. After transcription (DNA --> mRNA) some mRNA is spliced out before the final translation (mRNA-->protein). Their next step will be to find the BAK1 gene and sequence it. Is the difference in the gene itself, or is it a mutation in in the translation step (for example a mutated tRNA that causes it to misread the code or bring the wrong amino acid to the site of the SNP)?
It's no easy task. It's like querying a database of english sentences that have this pattern:
*ea*lk*as*rt*al*, where you have no idea how many letters or spaces or whole words are between those patterns. - insanebrain, on 07/20/2009, -0/+3This is Digg... we cure cancer at least once a week :)
- Rudegar, on 07/20/2009, -2/+5when a vampire is full of the blood of another person of cause the dna is different! :P
- thanakar, on 07/20/2009, -0/+2This is nothing new.
- datastorageguy, on 07/20/2009, -0/+2I bet your posts are just some kind of surreal attempt at getting past web filters somewhere. I really can't think of any other reason.
- NiftyG, on 07/20/2009, -1/+3There is something called microchimerism, where someone retains cells from their mother and integrates those cells into their organs. Mothers can also retain cells from a child. Perhaps this is something similar.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=y ... - wrek, on 07/20/2009, -0/+2HAHAHAHHAHAHAH your DNA proof IS fallible Mr. Prosecutor!
- PhoenixEclectus, on 07/20/2009, -0/+2Not completely accurate. First, there's no need to untangle the protein to get the mRNA. The virtue of cDNA is merely, as you mentioned, that it comes with all of the non-coding "junk" already spliced out. However, this actually makes the proverbial story MORE apparent because there's no "garbage" to sift through. The problem with using cDNA--the reason it still doesn't tell the WHOLE story--isn't that the mRNA has already been spliced. The problem, rather, is that the mRNA may have been edited AGAIN by some other mechanism BEFORE translation. Thus, "it's unclear whether [the] BAK1 differences in the blood and aortic tissue are the consequence of RNA editing, which changes the messenger RNA but not the gene, or DNA editing, which involves differences in the gene itself."
But yes, they need to look at the nDNA to resolve the uncertainty. - mdraper, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1But that means that doubt that was introduced by defense attorneys digging up ancient DNA evidence that didn't show up as a positive decades after the fact for dozens of people is in question.. This means that those people could have been set free when they were probably guilty as convicted :\
- Culyt, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1I would think that this would actually make finding a cancer cure harder.
Granted it important that we know that this is the case if it is happening, but it would be much simpler if we all had the 1 genome.
If people have multiple DNA sequences then can become much harder to treat them using some kind of virus that replaces the corrupt DNA since you now have to target the correct cells to fix.
Also it would mean that all the genetics stuff thats happening could have massive setbacks since you no longer have to sequence 1 genome per-person but many. It also makes finding out what everything does much more complex (although in some cases easier, if there are differences in blood DNA then its likely specific to blood). - sonnybobiche, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1This is actually really big news for the medical research community. I can't believe I heard it through digg.
Now I have to go tell my PI that all our data is garbage and we have to start over. ...Actually, I'll hold off on that for now. - Moralogic, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1Not only is it nothing new, but with a comment like, "The usual dogma is that your DNA is the same all over the place," makes me think these idiots have no place studying cancer or DNA. I am sorry for being a dick "know it all" about this, but I thought that was common knowledge that errors that happen when cells duplicate sometimes will or wont cause cancer depending on the error.
I hope this is an old quote that someone dug up or a snippet of what the guy said, because it makes them look stupid otherwise. - mdraper, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1Open your mind to me....
Open your mind....
Open your miiiiiiiind.... - Paranor01, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1a "cure" for cancer cannot be just 1 cure because each cancer type will function differently and have different DNA triggers. a cure for one may not work on another form just like viruses have many different strains within the same family group.
- FlashBazbo, on 07/20/2009, -0/+1I saw this episode of The Venture Brothers. The twin wasn't absorbed.
- PhoenixEclectus, on 07/20/2009, -1/+1First, Reverse transcriptase is used to get the cDNA from the mRNA. The mRNA is simply transcribed from the nDNA.
Second, if by "nascent mRNA" you mean pre-spliced mRNA, that makes no sense: something that was spliced out would inherently have no effect on translation and therefore no effect on the protein. If, on the other hand, you mean that something had to happen to mRNA before translation--regardless of whether or not splicing had yet occurred--then we're in agreement: I said that "the mRNA may have been edited AGAIN by some other mechanism BEFORE translation" and the article implies as much--hence the uncertainty over whether it was the mRNA or the nDNA from which it was transcribed that was edited. At any rate, I never claimed that the protein itself was edited directly.
Third, the key word here--as used in the article--is edited. These SNP differences are not the product of mutations--of something going wrong during transcription or translation. Rather, there's some mechanism that's "intentionally" and systematically editing either the mRNA or nDNA in the aortic cells to form the alternate (not mutant) protein. RNAP, nor tRNA, nor RNA degradation are capable of making such consistent and systematic modifications. - bbeep, on 07/20/2009, -1/+1Are you suggesting they used a reverse transcriptase to get the mRNA? These days it's much faster for us to denature and sequence a protein than for us to use a reverse transcriptase (simply because we don't want to waste time creating the primer). Also, you're wrong about mRNA processing. Suppose there was a frameshift mutation in the ORF near the exon/intron splice site, this would be a good way of generating SNPs. Further, the fact that you have a fully working mutant protein implicates something within the processing of the nascent mRNA, rather than post-translational modification (siRNA, polyadenylation etc etc. work on whole proteins, not single bases). The key clue is that these mutations take place at the site of SNPs, I think you're missing this. This implicates either RNAP or tRNA (plus the degneracy of the RNA code itself!) as being the source of the SNPs. We'll see once they track down the BAK1 gene and sequence it.
- bbeep, on 07/20/2009, -1/+1Your last post has made clear that you don't really know what you're talking about (mutant vs. wildtype for example). Therefore I'm not willing to spend any more time discussing this. If you'd like to waste my time further, please PM me.
- Culyt, on 07/20/2009, -2/+1Not necessarily. If all cancers are gene related then one cure could work.
It doesn't matter if there are hundreds of different types, or different locations if you can take one injection that redoes the broken dna, or one kind of nanobot that can remove the cells somehow.
With that said I doubt it will happen this way. Chances are it will go on as various different treatments and sergeries until some huge scientific breakthroughs are made.
You could also get a 'cure for viruses' too, although it might be somewhat extreme like mind uploading into a cyborg body. - cheesehound, on 07/20/2009, -4/+2I saw this episode of House. It was an absorbed twin. Duh.
- gfelstein55, on 07/20/2009, -6/+0Great Achievement for the cure of Cancer…
- syntaxgs, on 07/20/2009, -14/+3this good news becosue it one step close too cure cancer finally =D
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