OF MELANOMA, TELOMERASE, AND WINDSTORMS

Linda at Oxford

It is hard to just sit down and write when you don’t feel like it.  I have something important to write about, but I can’t summon so much as a drop of either inspiration or enthusiasm.  The problem probably stems from the weather; it is cool and sunny today, and something inside me keeps saying: “Get your butt outside and get some exercise!”  And I would, but it also is blowing hard.  If I could drive to a deep wash somewhere and walk I probably would be sheltered – but it has been raining lately, and I don’t trust a sandy wash after a rain.  So, weather wimp that I seem to have become, I will stay inside and write another blog.

Dick Ingwall again has alerted me to an important article in the NYTimes.  It appears that two research teams have simultaneously reported on an investigation of the genomes of certain cancer patients, specificially those with melanoma.  They sequenced the so-called “dark matter” of DNA, which is a cute reference to the roughly 98% of DNA which does NOT code  for a protein (are not “genes”, sensu strictu.)  They found a mutation of a particular sequence that codes for a regulartory molecule: something that tells a gene when to turn on and when to turn off.  In 70% of the 70 melanomas studied, the same short region of “dark matter” was mutated.  Interestingly, the identical mutation was found in examples of liver and bladder cancer.  A separate study also published found that some people for whom melanoma “runs in the family” (poor devils) INHERITED this mutation.  So, this little DNA mistake is a nasty brute, worthy of further study.

If I get this right, the mutation is responsible for the proliferation of telomerase in the tumor cells.  You remember telomeres and telomerase from previous blogs.  Telomeres are the protective stuff at the end of chromosomes that prevents premature cell death.  Telomerase is an enzyme that rebuilds the telomere string – in stem cells and, regrettably, cancer cells as well.  If the cancer cells didn’t have telomerase handy they would die normally after a few divisions, not spread without limit, to the detriment of the organism.  So far it has not proven possible to attack cancer by going after its telomerase.  However, efforts are underway – and progress is being made, I certainly hope.

This is an interesting article to which I have not done the least justice.  You can read it yourself at: http://nyti.ms/WpggGy.  .  It also is possible to read the abstracts of the two scientific papers referred to in the Times story, by using Google Scholar.  You can even get the articles themselves; for $20 per, but - unless you majored in biochemistry - don't bother.

I am going to go back through this blog and find all the times telomeres have come up.  I will report, in a Comment.  I think we’re on to something.