Cancers Protect Themselves From Their Own Mutations

 

A new study has shown how it is possible that cancerous tumors accumulate thousands of damaging mutations over time while yet being able to continue to thrive. Genes that minimize the misfolding of proteins are up-regulated by tumors with a large number of mutations which is why they are protected from their own mutations. Research was conducted on the gene expression on over 10,300 human tumors across 33 cancer types. It was found that there was a consistent up-regulation of chaperone proteins and proteasome which degrade misfolded proteins. Researchers validated their findings by using cell line data which showed higher mutational load in correlation with lower cell viability, which suggests that gene upregulation protects tumors. This finding shows that there is a weakness in tumors that could be exploited and possibly could lead to new therapeutic opportunities.