Recent Work Adds Support to Theory That Cells May Have Metastatic Origin

Extract

For years, medical science has looked for clues to what makes cancer cells different from normal cells by studying the telltale changes in the DNA code. But the answer may lie in the very structure of the DNA polymer itself, according to Donald Malins, Ph.D, D.Sc., and his colleagues at Pacific Northwest Research Institute in Seattle.

...

In back-to-back studies, Malins' team reported that they can detect changes in the structure of DNA that can predict a cancer phenotype in cells before tumors form and furthermore can distinguish metastatic from nonmetastatic cells.

Using Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), a technique more familiar to forensic scientists than to molecular biologists, the scientists use the polymeric nature of DNA to study subtle changes in the stacking of base pairs and the DNA backbone that they then compare with the various stages of tumor development. The changes represent a ripple effect on the DNA polymer that results from chemical alterations to the bases, either through oxidative damage or other epigenetic changes such as methylation, said Malins.