Cancer & Diabetes Many with genotype changes

Cancer and Diabetes: Many healthy people with dangerous genetic changes

08/07/2014

Many healthy people carry dangerous genetic changes in their cells, as a US study found. Preventing the spread of this mutated genetic material is a possible starting point against cancer and aging processes.

Potentially pathogenic genetic alterations
At least every fifth healthy person, according to a US study, carries potentially pathogenic crop changes in the power plants of his cells. As the researchers from Cornell University in Ithaca in the journal „Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences“ (PNAS), the errors of intact DNA variants in the so-called mitochondria would be compensated. It is possible that such changes sometimes accumulate in the course of life in such a way that a critical point is reached in the cell structure and symptoms occur.

Only maternally inherited
Mitochondria are roundish structures in the cells with their own genetic material, called mtDNA. They are called „power plants“ because they form high-energy molecules in them, but they also have other very important functions. A single cell of the body may contain hundreds to thousands mtDNA copies in its many mitochondria, and in addition to the original wild-type mtDNA there may also be altered - mutated - genetic material. If both are present simultaneously, this is called heteroplasmy.

Possible starting point against cancer and aging processes
Most of the diseases caused by mitochondrial genomes can be traced back to heteroplasmias. It often affects the muscles, but even complex diseases such as diabetes or cancer and aging processes are partly due to it. As scientists write, the number of heteroplasmas increases with age. It is a possible starting point against cancer and aging processes to prevent the spread of mutant mtDNA. However, it would be wrong to rely only on appropriate treatment, as the lifestyle always plays a role in diseases, often even more important than the inherited factor. (Ad)