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Targeted virus compels cancer cells to eat themselves

biologynews.net — An engineered virus tracks down and infects the most common and deadly form of brain cancer and then kills tumor cells by forcing them to devour themselves.

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  • tidejwe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15I've never thought about this before, but it makes sense. Most forms of cancer have a similarity between the cancerous cells. There is something in their DNA or RNA code (whatever) that is corrupted so that it doesn't commit suicide like normal cells but still keeps replicating.

    All you'd have to do is engineer a virus to target any cells with that feature and voilla! Brilliant. I had always assumed this is what nano-bots would eventually do, because they would be easier to program...but essentially a virus can be programmed the same way as they are already pre-programmed to target a certain type of cell. You manipulate that sequence in the virus and take out the replication of it, and there you go! WOW! Definitely a DIGG WORTHY breakthrough! This could speed along cancer cures in ways we've never imagined.
    • splatnik, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Cool but isn't it a little bit scary creating viruses to do this? Maybe I'm a bit paranoid but there's something about evolution that makes me worried these things might develop a taste for other types of cells too.
    • jabbar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4they wouldn't be able to "develop" any other tastes if you limit the size of the genetic material you put inside and control what genes are there. it can be very controlled.
    • priegog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Not to be picky or anything, but you got DNA sequence and DNA code confused (you put the 'whatever' after it, so you are safe from my bitchin').
      And yeah, targeted viral therapy (as used in some kinds of genetic therapy, for instance) has it's drawbacks, one of them is (you guessed it) a huge cancer incidence afterwards. There's something about a virus' capacity to play with DNA that doesn't make me very comfortable...
    • fugitivALiEN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"virus* tracks down and infects the most common and deadly form of brain cancer and then kills tumor cells by forcing them to devour themselves" ...and then the virus moves on to proceeds to eat your brain and infect it with a brain eating disease that requires more brains in order to stay alive... your body will die as a result ;)

      * = some side affects may include uncurable appetite for brains, loss of limbs, evacuated bowels or constipation, and in some cases ED
    • tidejwe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@priegog

      Thanks. That's why I added the "whatever" because I couldn't remember all the EXACT details from my biotechnology class off the top of my head.

      I don't think it would be that risky after running several tests on animals, etc. Besides, they can program the virus to not be able to reproduce and to commit suicide after a certain interval. There would be no evolving on the side of the virus...who knows about the cancer cells though.
    • mc1123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hadn't either. It does make a lot of sense though.
    • cohortq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@splatnik
      "Maybe I'm a bit paranoid but there's something about evolution that makes me worried these things might develop a taste for other types of cells too."

      Heaven forbid it warps into this super virus that attacks our immune system's T-Cells and is spread through sexual contact!!

    • splatnik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Help me out here because biology isn't my field of interest but do viruses swap genetic material or is that just bacteria? I think it's brilliant using viruses as vectors (and not new) but it's still a little bit unnerving.
    • ben1185, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Damn, just thought of this...I guess I'm too late. Oh well I guess that's a good thing
  • retral, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4One of the best (humanity/usefulness wise) advances in science I've seen lately.
  • bullet_storm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3http://www.mdanderson.org/departments/newsroom/display.cfm?id=2BFBE8C5-BA5B-421D-96E235C4CF443D07&method=displayFull&pn=00c8a30f-c468-11d4-80fb00508b603a14
  • chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is really neat, and hopefully we can see this used in medicines one day.
  • r00tus3r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Good to see scientists out there putting their skills towards a worthy cause. If only populations would encourage their governments to put more money into health care and research and less money into national "defense" the world would be a much safer place. God bless them.
  • aliengoods, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4A well written science article.

    In the future, can we have more of these. Please.
  • benutne, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Reminds me of a movie I saw once where they would take "viruses" for all sorts of things. From boosting empathy (the main character used this variety) to making you stronger and faster. Let us all hope that the research into reprogramming viruses will end up being a good thing. Although I can just see all sorts of frivolous uses. Don't want to go out and get a tan? Just take this virus and it will "infect" your skin cells making them produce more melanin for that healthy golden color without worrying about skin cancer.
    • Bradl3y, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1bury me
    • althe3rduww, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Properly triggered t-cells can aid in removing any lingering cancer cells. Another study I read in TIME yesterday discussed how properly programmed t cells will mass-attack cancer cells in the cervix.
  • betasp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"''We believe that autophagy, but not apoptosis, mediates the principal anti-tumor effect of conditionally replicating adenoviruses,'' Kondo says."

    I don't know about you guys, but that pretty muched summed up the science for me...
    // shakes head rapidly
    • randompeach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Oh you big baby. Look it up.
      "''We believe that autophagy, but not apoptosis, mediates the principal anti-tumor effect of conditionally replicating adenoviruses,'' Kondo says."
      Autophagy: Cells eat themselves to reprocess unused/old products
      Apoptosis: Cell suicide
      the rest: controls the replication of the virus that's killing the tumor
  • Bradl3y, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3If you have millions of cells eating each other, who is going to eat the very last one?
  • mooninite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Shouldn't we be making all of our cells "cancerous?" We'd never die...

    Silly, yes, but I'm bored.
    • Norseman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Only if the virus is really good at spreading uncontrollably. Hopefully they picked a good base to work with. Edit: *****, this was supposed to go to the post below.
  • SomethingSubtle, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3What happens when the virus mutates and starts attacking the more prevalent healthy brain cells?
    Then we get something more virulent than cancer.
    • justice7, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2what you mean like keemo therapy?
    • morner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This virus targets a protein which is not produced in healthy brain cells, and in fact kills the cancerous cells by using up the available reservoir of this protein. It's not really conceivable that this virus could mutate into a form pathogenic to ordinary brain cells, any more than there's a risk that bicycles might disrupt air transport by spontaneously gaining the ability to fly.
  • FTLJohnson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Shouldn't this work for HIV too?
    • Reziarfg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1HIV is a virus, not a cell. It's much more primitive.
    • morner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It wouldn't work for HIV. The annoying thing about HIV (from a cure perspective) is that it copies its genetic material into the DNA of the host's cells, which then go on to multiply and operate more or less as usual. There's no easy way yet, and there may never be, of targeting for destruction only those cells which carry the HIV genes. This is an interesting breakthrough in cancer care, and one which may also one day revolutionise the treatment of parasites, but I don't think it will help much against HIV.
    • randompeach, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Not so much.
      A virus isn't much more than a set of instructions waiting inside of a shell. Once a virus is inside a living cell, in this case cancer, it changes the cell's programming usually to make more viruses, but in this case it actually programs the cell to eat other cancel cells.
      Viruses aren't alive and therefore aren't susceptible to this kind of attack.
    • iowaboyjcb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, a paper published (which I can't seem to find) about 5-8 years ago used this similar strategy of taking a virus and using it to infect HIV-infected cells. The 'virus' used hiv's envelope protein as a receptor and would infect all cells that expressed hiv's envelope protein (aka any cell that had active hiv replication occurring).
    • veloscaper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1the target in this case was telomerase, or stated more clearly the virus used could only replicate in the presence of telomerase (an enyzme produce by many types of cancer cells). Once the virus was able to replicate inside a cell, the instructions it contained produced another enzyme that inactivated the cell's own self-cannibalization protection mechanism causing it to cannibalize itself.

      HIV (which causes AIDS) is a retrovirus which means the virus incorporates itself into the hosts DNA (by a process called reverse transcription, the virus itself contains RNA). Once incorporated into the hosts DNA, the virus survives in subsequent cell generations and the new incorporated DNA code itself replicates more viruses.

      I am not an expert in this field but in theory I see no reason why a similar method as used in this paper but substituting telomerase for an enzyme specifically produced by an HIV infected cell cannot be used.

      Given the current drug cocktails that can suppress virus production in combination with some future virus similar to the one in this paper that causes cell death to HIV infected cells, could be a cure for AIDS.
    • iowaboyjcb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Once incorporated into the hosts DNA, the virus survives in subsequent cell generations and the new incorporated DNA code itself replicates more viruses.

      HIV doesn't really survive multiple cell generations due to the cytopathic effect on the cell (pretty much replicates and kills the cell).

      ...why a similar method as used in this paper but substituting telomerase for an enzyme specifically produced by an HIV infected cell cannot be used.

      The only problem with this method and HIV is HIVs ability to mutate its enzyme, so no matter what HIV enzyme you choose to target, HIV would get around the problem(1), thus would create resistance to the introduced virus. As a side note, much work is being done in the field to target necessary interactions between cellular proteins and HIV proteins. Targeting cellular proteins (ones that won't mutate as quickly as hiv's) would be able to knockout hiv replication in infected cells.

      1 - the current drugs do target these enzymes, although have a virus target the infected cells would increase the effective drug in the infected cells and not harm uninfected cells
  • technique, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9So when will this be ported to Windows? :-)
    • threepio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In other news: Mac OS X is immune to cell-consuming replicating viruses.
  • aside, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1this was just on "House" last week. Only it wasnt brain cancer, but cervical cancer.
    that show rocks, and is apparently accurate? watch it!
    • cremate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0awesome show and correct, this was on there (more or less). it also made fun of self proclaimed christian miracle workers.
  • Poco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is the second Digg post recently that reminded me of a recent episode of House. Something about syphilis reducing the size of a tumor?

    edit: Damn, aside beat me to it.
  • stevenb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Think of a virus like a computer program.. all it is is a set of instructions..

    Properly programmed the virus / program will execute exactly like it's supposed to until the end of it's instruction set.

    Bad ass that they're finally learning how to manipulate and use nature to fix nature's problems. :)

    -Stevenb
  • rolypolyman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"It would be a shame if something happened to your little experiment... maybe you all shouldn't be messing around with engineered viruses." -- Pharmaceutical Industry, $110 billion a year cancer treatment market
    • stevenb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yeah, well for them it's more profitable to treat HIV, Cancer, and other terminal illnesses than it is for them to provide a cure... or research for a cure.
  • mikesum32, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, I heard something like this, but I think it was a natural virus.

    edit
    found it http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/06/22/cancer.virus/
  • cakefart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I wouldn't get too excited about this, there are several hurdles past this point that are nearly impossible to get past, like:

    1) Getting the virus to target more than one kind of cell
    - Viruses need to dock with cells, and the docking location is different in almost every tissue, or just doesn't exist
    2) Overcoming resistant tumor cells
    - Tumor cells are always changing their docking sites around so they won't work anymore. Mutating is what tumor cells are good at. That's why they're tumor cells.
    3) Not killing the host
    - Sure, it'll cure you of cancer, but it will infect every cell in your body and kill you, or give you some other fatal form of cancer down the road. Both of which have been quite common in clinical trials of similar therapeutic approaches.

    When this approach works, it's because of dumb luck, and nothing else. The researchers usually have zero idea of why it worked, even several years later.
    • Metasquares, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"3) Not killing the host
      - Sure, it'll cure you of cancer, but it will infect every cell in your body and kill you, or give you some other fatal form of cancer down the road. Both of which have been quite common in clinical trials of similar therapeutic approaches."

      There isn't much telomerase in normal somatic cells. I doubt that there's enough to sustain an infection. It's like a cellular form of herd immunity.
  • Metasquares, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm glad to see they're finally targeting telomerase. To me, that's always seemed like the most likely source of a cure.

    The majority of tumors need telomerase to keep replicating. It's one of the few things you can basically assure is going to be there. At the same time, telomerase is not present in most normal cells (gametes being an exception, IIRC), so it is ideal to target.
  • Soldier, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I hope they figure out something soon, because my grandmother was diagnosed with brain cancer. It's not malignant yet, but the doctors predict it will be very soon.
  • thewise1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So when it's all done, there will be one really fat cancer cell?
  • MiniBear, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Brilliant research
  • wafflesomd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cool, someday, mabye cancer will just be about as harmful as the common cold.
  • skyrank, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sorry if someone else mentioned this but I've been using the grid.org cancer software for a few years that uses shared CPU time from all it's members to help find a cure. for anyone interested in this, go to www.grid.org/download I'm not affiliated with them in any way but if i was able to get them even 1 more member to help speed up finding a cure it was worth it! I've installed the software on 4 PC's (PC only, no mac version sadly) and I've logged almost 7 years of CPU cycle time tword the effert! Thank you for listening and please dont flame this if you didnt find it useful! Take care
  • kruegersc4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sounds like a major breakthrough! Perhaps we'll never have nano-bots, as viruses may be actually easier to create, program, and recreate (as they reproduce themselves). Lets hope this virus doesn't do something to the human body we don't want it to, or mutate to do so (I guess that's a plus of 'bots - no random changes).
  • iowaboyjcb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you want to read the actual article I have put it up on my site for you downloading pleasure. I like their methods, but they infected with a lot of virus.
    http://grove.ufl.edu/~bunger/article.pdf
  • dunstdunst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.dysplasia.co.uk/
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