Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence (LPBI) Group

Epilogue: Envisioning New Insights in Cancer Translational Biology

Author and Curator: Larry H Bernstein, MD, FCAP

 

The foregoing  summary leads to a beginning as it is a conclusion.  It concludes a body of work in the e-book series,

Series C: e-Books on Cancer & Oncology

VOLUME ONE 

Cancer Biology and Genomics for Disease Diagnosis

2014

Stephen J. Williams, PhD, Senior Editor

sjwilliamspa@comcast.net

Tilda Barliya, PhD, Editor

tildabarliya@gmail.com

Ritu Saxena, PhD, Editor

ritu.uab@gmail.com

Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence 

that has been presented by the cancer team of professional experts, e-Book concept was conceived by Aviva Lev-Ari, PhD, RN, e-Series Editor-in-Chief and Founder of Leaders in Pharmaceutical Business Intelligence 

and the Open Access Online Scientific Journal

http://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com

Stephen J. Williams, PhD, Senior Editor, and other notable contributors in  various aspects of cancer research in the emerging fields of targeted  pharmacology,  nanotechnology, cancer imaging, molecular pathology, transcriptional and regulatory ‘OMICS’, metabolism, medical and allied health related sciences, synthetic biology, pharmaceutical discovery, and translational medicine.

This  volume and its content have been conceived and organized to capture the organized events that emerge in embryological development, leading to the major organ systems that we recognize anatomically and physiologically as an integrated being.  We capture the dynamic interactions between the systems under stress  that are elicited by cytokine-driven hormonal responses, long thought to be circulatory and multisystem, that affect the major compartments of  fat and lean body mass, and are as much the drivers of metabolic pathway changes that emerge as epigenetics, without disregarding primary genetic diseases.

The greatest difficulty in organizing such a work is in whether it is to be merely a compilation of cancer expression organized by organ systems, or whether it is to capture developing concepts of underlying stem cell expressed changes that were once referred to as “dedifferentiation”.  In proceeding through the stages of neoplastic transformation, there occur adaptive local changes in cellular utilization of anabolic and catabolic pathways, and a retention or partial retention of functional specificities.

This  effectively results in the same cancer types not all fitting into the same “shoe”. There is a sequential loss of identity associated with cell migration, cell-cell interactions with underlying stroma, and metastasis., but cells may still retain identifying “signatures” in microRNA combinatorial patterns.  The story is still incomplete, with gaps in our knowledge that challenge the imagination.

What we have laid out is a map with substructural ordered concepts forming subsets within the structural maps.  There are the traditional energy pathways with terms aerobic and anaerobic glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, triose phosphate branch chains, pentose shunt, and TCA cycle vs the Lynen cycle, the Cori cycle, glycogenolysis, lipid peroxidation, oxidative stress, autosomy and mitosomy, and genetic transcription, cell degradation and repair, muscle contraction, nerve transmission, and their involved anatomic structures (cytoskeleton, cytoplasm, mitochondria, liposomes and phagosomes, contractile apparatus, synapse.

Then there is beneath this macro-domain the order of signaling pathways that regulate these domains and through mechanisms of cellular regulatory control have pleiotropic inhibitory or activation effects, that are driven by extracellular and intracellular energy modulating conditions through three recognized structures: the mitochondrial inner membrane, the intercellular matrix, and the ion-channels.

What remains to be done?

1. There is still to be elucidated the differences in patterns within cancer types the distinct phenotypic and genotypic features  that mitigate anaplastic behavior. One leg of this problem lies in the density of mitochondria, that varies between organ types, but might vary also within cell type of a common function.  Another leg of this problem has also appeared to lie in the cell death mechanism that relates to the proeosomal activity acting on both the ribosome and mitochondrion in a coordinated manner.  This is an unsolved mystery of molecular biology.

 

2. Then there is a need to elucidate the major differences between tumors of endocrine, sexual, and structural organs, which are distinguished by primarily a synthetic or primarily a catabolic function, and organs that are neither primarily one or the other.  For example, tumors of the thyroid and paratnhyroids, islet cells of pancreas, adrenal cortex, and pituitary glands have the longest 5 year survivals.  They and the sexual organs are in the visceral compartment.  The rest of the visceral compartment would be the liver, pancreas, salivary glands, gastrointestinal tract, and lungs (which are embryologically an outpouching of the gastrointestinal tract), kidneys and lower urinary tract.  Cancers of these organs have a much less favorable survival (brain, breast and prostate, lymphatic, blood forming organ, skin).  The case  is intermediate for breast and prostate between the endocrine organs and GI tract, based on natural history, irrespective of the available treatments.  Just consider the dilemma over what we do about screening for prostate cancer in men over the age of 60 years age who have a 70 percent incident silent carcinoma of the prostate that could be associated with unrelated cause of death.  The very rapid turnover of the gastric and colonic GI epithelium, and of the  subepithelial  B cell mucosal lymphocytic structures  is associated  with a greater aggressiveness of the tumor.

 

3. However, we  have to reconsider the observation by NO Kaplan than the synthetic and catabolic functions are highlighted by differences in the expressions of the balance of  the two major pyridine nucleotides – DPN (NAD) and TPN (NADP) – which also might be related to the density of mitochondria  which is associated with both NADP and synthetic activity, and  with efficient aerobic function.  These are in an equilibrium through the “transhydrogenase reaction” co-discovered by Kaplan, in Fritz Lipmann’s laboratory. There does  arise a conundrum involving the regulation of mitochondria in these high turnover epithelial tissues  that rely on aerobic energy, and generate ATP through TPN linked activity, when they undergo carcinogenesis. The cells  replicate and they become utilizers of glycolysis, while at the same time, the cell death pathway is quiescent. The result becomes the introduction of peripheral muscle and liver synthesized protein cannabolization (cancer cachexia) to provide glucose  from proteolytic amino acid sources.

 

4. There is also the structural compartment of the lean body mass. This is the heart, skeletal  structures (includes smooth muscle of GI tract, uterus, urinary bladder, brain, bone, bone marrow).  The contractile component is associated with sarcomas.  What is most striking is that the heart, skeletal muscle, and inflammatory cells are highly catabolic, not anabolic.  NO Kaplan referred tp them as DPN (NAD) tissues. This compartment requires high oxygen supply, and has a high mechanical function. But again, we return to the original observations of enrgy requirements at rest being different than at high demand.  At work, skeletal muscle generates lactic acid, but the heart can use lactic acid as fuel,.

 

5. The liver is supplied by both the portal vein and the hepatic artery, so it is not prone to local ischemic injury (Zahn infarct). It is exceptional in that it carries out synthesis of all the circulating transport proteins, has a major function in lipid synthesis and in glycogenesis and glycogenolysis, with the added role of drug detoxification through the P450 system.  It is not only the largest organ (except for brain), but is highly active both anabolically and catabolically (by ubiquitilation).
6. The expected cellular turnover rates for these tissues and their balance of catabolic and anabolic function would have to be taken into account to account for the occurrence and the activities of oncogenesis. This is by no means a static picture, but a dynamic organism constantly in flux imposed by internal and external challenges.  It is also important to note the the organs have a concentration of mitochondria, associated with energy synthetic and catabolic requirements provided by oxygen supply and the electron transport mechanism for oxidative phosphorylation.  For example, tissues that are primarily synthetic do not have intermitent states of resting and high demand, as seen in skeletal muscle, or perhaps myocardium (which is syncytial and uses lactic acid generated from skeletal muscle when there is high demand).
7. The existence of  lncDNA has been discovered only as a result of the human genome project (HGP). This was previously known only as “dark DNA”.  It has become clear that lncDNA has an important role in cellular regulatory activities centered in the chromatin modeling.  Moreover, just as proteins exhibit functionality in their folding, related to tertiary structure and highly influenced by location of –S-S- bridges and amino acid residue distances (allosteric effects), there is a less studied effect as the chromatin becomes more compressed within the nucleus, that should have a bearing on cellular expression.

According to Jose Eduardo de Salles Roselino , when the Na/Glucose transport system (for a review Silvermann, M. in Annu. Rev. Biochem.60: 757-794(1991)) was  found in kidneys as well as in key absorptive cells of digestive tract, it should be stressed its functional relationship with “internal milieu” and real meaning, homeostasis. It is easy to understand how the major topic was presented as how to prevent diarrheal deaths in infants, while detected in early stages. However, from a biochemical point of view, as presented in Schrödinger´s What is life?, (biochemistry offering a molecular view for two legs of biology, physiology and genetics). Why should it be driven to the sole target of understanding genetics? Why the understanding of physiology in molecular terms should be so neglected?

From a biochemical point of view, here in a single protein. It is found the transport of the cation most directly related to water maintenance, the internal solvent that bath our cells and the hydrocarbon whose concentration is kept under homeostatic control on that solvent. Completely at variance with what is presented in microorganisms as previously mentioned in Moyed and Umbarger revision (Ann. Rev42: 444(1962)) that does not regulates the environment where they live and appears to influence it only as an incidental result of their metabolism.

In case any attempt is made in order to explain why the best leg that supports scientific reasoning from biology for medical purposes was led to atrophy, several possibilities can be raised. However, none of them could be placed strictly in scientific terms. Factors that bare little relationship with scientific progress in general terms must also be taken into account.

One simple possibility of explanation can be found in one review (G. Scatchard – Solutions of Electrolytes Ann. Rev. Physical Chemistry 14: 161-176 (1963)).  A simple reading of it and the sophisticated differences among researchers will discourage one hundred per cent of biologists to keep in touch with this line of research. Biochemists may keep on reading.  However, consider that first: Complexity is not amenable to reductionist vision in all cases. Second, as coupling between scalar flows such as chemical reactions and vector flows such as diffusion flows, heat flows, and electrical current can occur only in anisotropic system…let them with their problems of solvents, ions and etc. and let our biochemical reactions on another basket. At the interface, for instance, at membrane level, we will agree that ATP is converted to ADP because it is far from equilibrium and the continuous replenishment of ATP that maintain relatively constant ATP levels inside the cell and this requires some non-stationary flow.

Our major point must be to understand that our biological limits are far clearer present in our limited ability to regulate the information stored in the DNA than in the amount of information we have in the DNA as the master regulator of the cells.

The amazing revelation that Masahiro Chiga   (discovery of liver adenylate kinase  distinct from that of muscle) taught  me (LHB) is – draw 2 circles  that intersect, one of which represents what we know, the other – what we don’t know.  We don’t teach how much we don’t know!  Even today, as much as 40 years ago, there is a lot we need to get on top of this.

 

The observation is rather similar to the presentations I  (Jose Eduardo de Salles Rosalino) was previously allowed to make of the conformational energy as made by R Marcus in his Nobel lecture revised (J. of  Electroanalytical Chemistry 438:(1997) p251-259. His description of the energetic coordinates of a landscape of a chemical reaction is only a two-dimensional cut of what in fact is a volcano crater (in three dimensions) ( each one varie but the sum of the two is constant. Solvational+vibrational=100% in ordinate) nuclear coordinates in abcissa. In case we could represent it by research methods that allow us to discriminate in one by one degree of different pairs of energy, we would most likely have 360 other similar representations of the same phenomenon. The real representation would take into account all those 360 representation together. In case our methodology was not that fine, for instance it discriminate only differences of minimal 10 degrees in 360 possible, will have 36 partial representations of something that to be perfectly represented will require all 36 being taken together. Can you reconcile it with ATGC? Yet, when complete genome sequences were presented they were described as we will know everything about this living being. The most important problems in biology will be viewed by limited vision always and the awareness of this limited is something we should acknowledge and teach it. Therefore, our knowledge is made up of partial representations.

 

Even though we may have complete genome data for the most intricate biological problems, they are not so amenable to this level of reductionism. However, from general views of signals and symptoms we could get to the most detailed molecular view and in this case the genome provides an anchor. This is somehow, what Houssay was saying to me and to Leloir when he pointed out that only in very rare occasions biological phenomena could be described in three terms: Pacco, the dog and the anesthetic (previous e-mail). The non-coding region, to me will be important guiding places for protein interactions.