According to NCI dictionary of cancer terms1, cancer cell lines are cancer cells that keep dividing and growing over time, under certain conditions in a laboratory. Cancer cell lines are used in research to study the biology of cancer and to test cancer treatments. As there are ethical issues in using animal models to study cancer, cell lines have been used as an alternative model. There are many pros and cons in using cell lines as a model for cancer study. A large number of cancer cell lines are available and are easily accessible for scientific research. Frozen cells can be used as a substitute for contaminated cultures. Under appropriate conditions, the results are reproducible when using cell lines. Studying cancer cell lines enables to understand the genes that are deregulated as well as the signaling pathways associated with this disease. Studies using cell lines are helpful in developing anticancer drugs. Genetic as well as epigenetic modifications in cell lines can be achieved using vectors, siRNA, demethylation agents and cytostatics2. Cancer cells are highly homogenous. A cancer cell line encyclopedia, catalogs the genetic and molecular profiles of almost 1000 human cancer cell lines. This was launched by Novartis and Broad Institute3. According to Mark Fishman, President of the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, “Probing cell lines with medicines targeted at specific pathways, as done for the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia, provides a powerful tool for design of cancer treatment.” Even though cancer cell lines are important model system, the scientific community questions the reliability of this system. During the first passages, the cell lines show chromosome abnormalities, molecular/ morphologic characteris...
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... J.-P., Varma, S., & Gottesman, M. M. (2013). The clinical relevance of cancer cell lines. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 105(7), 452–8. doi:10.1093/jnci/djt007
6.Domcke, S., Sinha, R., Levine, D. a, Sander, C., & Schultz, N. (2013). Evaluating cell lines as tumour models by comparison of genomic profiles. Nature communications, 4, 2126. doi:10.1038/ncomms3126 7.Eva Kiesler, (http://www.mskcc.org, 2013) Do Cancer Cell Lines Really Resemble Tumors? Now Researchers Can Tell.
8.The Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia enables predictive modelling of anticancer drug sensitivity. Nature, 483(7391), 603–7. doi:10.1038/nature11003
9.Garnett, M. J., Edelman, E. J., Heidorn, S. J., Greenman, C. D., Dastur, A., Lau, K. W., … Soares, J. (2012). Systematic identification of genomic markers of drug sensitivity in cancer cells. Nature, 483(7391), 570–5. doi:10.1038/nature11005
The concept of tumor heterogeneity being related to the course of the disease and clinical outcome in cancer patients draws additional attention in the era of personalized medicine (1). Current cancer treatment strategies are based on the site of origin of the primary tumor. However, it was shown that tumors developed from distinct cell types differ in their prognosis and response to cytotoxic therapies (2...
Used in scientific research, the HeLa cells are known to be a type of immortal, tissue cultured cell line. A cell line is a group of cells taken from a person and used for scientific research (science.howstuffworks.com). When a cell type is known to be immortal, it refers to the cells being able to divide an indefinite amount of times, when cell survival conditions are met in a laboratory. The first human cell line to survive in a test tube, or in vitro, was the HeLa cells (science.howstuffworks.com). These cells were taken from a tissue of a tumor of a woman with cervical cancer back in the 1950s. Her name was Henrietta Lacks. There have been many advances in medicine and biomedical research because of her cells.
The cancer stem cell theory hypothesizes that tumors or cancers arise from mutations or epigenetic changes in normal stem cells. These mutated or genetically altered stem cells possess the properties of the normal stem cells such as the ability to self-renew, differentiate into any type of body cell, and resist apoptosis. Hence, the cancer stem cells (CSC) are named so. It is also suggested that because of the above-mentioned properties of the cancer stem cells, the current anti-cancer therapies are not entirely successful (Gil et al, 2008). Despite surgery and other therapies, even if very few of these cancer stem cells survive, they can continue to act as a source for more tumors, even though the therapies eliminate all visible signs of cancer.
Stem cell therapy is a controversial topic that falls on the list of things not to discuss over thanksgiving dinner, very much like religion and politics. While the potential of stem cell research and therapy stand to make leaps of progression in cures for disease like Cancer and Alzheimer’s; Pros, Cons and morality still surround the issue.
Gene therapy is an experimental technique that allows doctors to insert a gene into a patient’s cell rather than using drugs or surgery. Gene therapy is a process of which defective or undesired genes in the body with “normal” genes. A vector is re-engineered to deliver the gene to a target cell. Then the gene is transferred to the cell’s nucleus and must be activated in order to function. The main focus of gene therapy is to replace a lost or improper gene with a new functional copy into a vector that is inserted into the subject’s genome by way of penetrating its DNA. Gene therapy can be done outside of the body known as ex vivo by way of taking cells form patients bone marrow or blood and then growing them in a laboratory. Thus the corrected copy of the gene is inserted into the cells before being put back into the body. Gene therapy can also be done in vivo which can be done directly to the patient’s body. The word gene therapy really defines the management of genetic information that is encased in the cells, however, in most recent procedures the available technology is closely related in adding new genetic information, and many researchers favor the term gene transfer rather than gene therapy to mirror the reason that the purpose of gene work cannot always be therapeutic.
Cancer is the term used to describe a group of diseases consisting of hundreds of ailments and although there exists so many different types of cancer, they all begin in a similar way. The body is made up of over a trillion cells, and cancer is the uncontrolled growth of malfunctioning cells in the body (Dawson, 1996). “Normal body cells grow, divide, and die in an orderly fashion. During the early years of a person’s life, normal cells divide faster to allow the person to grow. After the person becomes an adult, most cells divide only to replace worn-out or dying cells or to repair injuries” (American Cancer Society, 2012).
Cancer.gov. (2014). Comprehensive Cancer Information - National Cancer Institute. [online] Retrieved from: http://www.cancer.gov/ [Accessed: 7 Apr 2014].
Li, Y., Wicha, M. S., Schwartz, S. J., & Sun, D. (2011, February 4). Implications of Cancer Stem Cell Theory for Cancer Chemoprevention by Natural Dietary Compounds. Retrieved December 12, 2013, from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248810/
... over normal proliferating cells (Figure 1) It is important to target events taking place at the same time in the cell cycle in order to boost effectiveness of the arrest and the results. In addition, it is important to characterize tumors precisely in order to clarify where the deficiencies on the cell cycle control are accrued and which of the phases have to be targeted for successful therapy. Furthermore, in the future, identification of new tumor specific isoenzymes will be necessary to characterize the cell cycle accurately and comprehend the differences between normal cells and cancer cells for the design of novel anticancer therapies (Diaz-Moralli, et al. 2013).
...oll(2010), around 33% of U.S. voters believe that taxpayers’ money should be spent on embryonic stem cell research and more than 50% of the voters disagree that taxpayers’ money should go the research(Roe, 2010). Hence, it is believed that government should not fund the stem cell research.
The American Cancer Society publishes current advances made in cancer research on their website. Many of the exciting discoveries about how best to treat the disease focus on the genetic aspects associated with certain types of cancer. In addition, treatments aimed at genetic solutions to cancer may be more effective and may cause fewer adverse side effects than traditional cancer treatments (American Can...
Cancer is a disease that affects human somatic cells. It causes the cells to divide uncontrollably and form masses known as tumors. There are two different types of cancer tumors. Some tumors are benign and other tumors are malignant. Benign tumors look similar to the tissues that they came from and develop slowly. The tumor remains in the same area that the tumor originated in. Malignant tumors are formed from cells that do not resemble the tissue that they came from. They vary in shape and size. This enables pieces of the tumor to break off and spread to other places in the body. Over the past few decades cancer has become a very prominent disease. There are many different types of cancer and many different causes for the the disease. Most cancers are because of a genetic mutation. The most common type occur when a cell is dividing. Proto-oncogenes, which are alleles in a normal cells, mutate to form oncogenes. These oncogenes cause cancer because they do not allow the cells to self destruct or become epistatic. There have been several research projects which have been testing epistatis.
25 April 2014. Muller, F. Toxicological Sciences. 2014. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. 24 April 2014. National Cancer Institute.
Blood and urine based biomarkers used in molecular pathology are only indicative of the average response of the cell population affected with little or no information of the range of response or variability form areas of tissue (Naddler and Langley 2001)