Are All Highly Malignant Cancer Cells Identical.

摘要

Two conclusions may be drawn tentatively from the present findings: (1) when cancer cells have developed to their ultimate state of autonomy and malignancy (i.e., maximally deviated), they are either identical or nearly identical; (2) the carcinogenesis process therefore involves a total or partial turning off of those regulatory and structural genes whose activities produce the spectra of proteins specific to each of the normal parent cell types and the turning on of a finite and immutable common set of genes whose activities lead to production of all the proteins which are represented by the 42 bands we discussed, plus others present but are not discerned due to our instrument limitation. The present findings confirm, extend and round up the series of generalizations about the nature of cancer cells by Warburg, Greenstein, Roberts, Damadian, and others, if, as we here suggest that all maximally deviated cancer cells are identical. Since all cells from the same living organs carry the same genome, that carcinogenesis could lead eventually to a similar assembly of genes being activated and the suppression of all others is clearly feasible.