Thursday, December 4, 2014

Survival of the Fittest Cell

Survival of the fittest doesn’t only happen in the wild. It also happens in the body. When people think of apoptosis, many think of a cell that is sick or damaged that must be removal. However, it has been discovered that if there are weak cells surrounded by healthier cells, these weak cells will be killed off. This is a problem when the stronger cells are cancer cells. Molecular biologists from University of Zurich and University of Columbia have been the first to publish that the only way for this process to happen is when one has an innate immune system.


The biologists proved their theory with an experiment with fruit flies. They saw that apoptosis was induced by “Spätzle”, which is a signaling protein that binds to the Toll-related receptors. This was known information, however; before this experiment, it was thought that this protein only reacted to the presence of foreign bacteria and fungus. It is now known that it also responds to less fit cells. The only part the team is not sure about whether it is the weak cell that triggers the binding or the stronger cells around it. As Professor Konrad Basler says, “We still don’t know whether this involves the voluntary or forced suicide of the less-fit cells.”


While this may sound like a good thing. Weaker cells are being conquered by healthier, stronger cells who are in better shape to do the work it needs to. However, what happens when the stronger cells are not good cells. This cell activity is often found in cancerous tissue. This raises big problems. However, it gives bigger hope to cancer research. Scientists hope that this discovery might lead to early detection of the disease, possibly before the cells are even malignant.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141204140648.htm

4 comments:

  1. This is very interesting news to me since I did not know that surrounded by stronger cells, the weak cells would be killed. But this makes sense to me since this is the nature of our society and it should not be a new concept in our body as well. I hope more research will be done to find a solution to when cancerous cells became the stronger cells in the environment and kill off good cells that are weaker.

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  2. This is a very interesting read. I was unaware that healthy cells that are deemed less fit would be killed off in the body. This is most certainly an issue when cancerous cells become the stronger cells and cause healthier cells to undergo apoptosis and die. Hopefully this discovery will lead to a way to more easily detect cancer cells.

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  3. I thought this was a interesting article because of that stronger cells kills weaker cells. I wasn't aware of this topic until I read this article; I had an idea of apoptosis which I learned in bio 1.

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  4. This study opens up many opportunities in the medical aspect of cancer research. I had known that cells can be influenced by others but by recognizing the fact that stronger healthy cells can kill of weaker cancerous cells may change the way treatments are given. I know the chemotherapy kills off all cells, healthy and cancerous. Does this study reject the way treatments have been given?

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