Cargando…

Genome Chaos, Information Creation, and Cancer Emergence: Searching for New Frameworks on the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer”

The year 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act, signed by President Nixon, which declared a national “war on cancer.” Powered by enormous financial support, this past half-century has witnessed remarkable progress in understanding the individual molecular mechanisms of cancer, p...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Heng, Julie, Heng, Henry H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8774498/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35052441
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes13010101
_version_ 1784636361518612480
author Heng, Julie
Heng, Henry H.
author_facet Heng, Julie
Heng, Henry H.
author_sort Heng, Julie
collection PubMed
description The year 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act, signed by President Nixon, which declared a national “war on cancer.” Powered by enormous financial support, this past half-century has witnessed remarkable progress in understanding the individual molecular mechanisms of cancer, primarily through the characterization of cancer genes and the phenotypes associated with their pathways. Despite millions of publications and the overwhelming volume data generated from the Cancer Genome Project, clinical benefits are still lacking. In fact, the massive, diverse data also unexpectedly challenge the current somatic gene mutation theory of cancer, as well as the initial rationales behind sequencing so many cancer samples. Therefore, what should we do next? Should we continue to sequence more samples and push for further molecular characterizations, or should we take a moment to pause and think about the biological meaning of the data we have, integrating new ideas in cancer biology? On this special anniversary, we implore that it is time for the latter. We review the Genome Architecture Theory, an alternative conceptual framework that departs from gene-based theories. Specifically, we discuss the relationship between genes, genomes, and information-based platforms for future cancer research. This discussion will reinforce some newly proposed concepts that are essential for advancing cancer research, including two-phased cancer evolution (which reconciles evolutionary contributions from karyotypes and genes), stress-induced genome chaos (which creates new system information essential for macroevolution), the evolutionary mechanism of cancer (which unifies diverse molecular mechanisms to create new karyotype coding during evolution), and cellular adaptation and cancer emergence (which explains why cancer exists in the first place). We hope that these ideas will usher in new genomic and evolutionary conceptual frameworks and strategies for the next 50 years of cancer research.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-8774498
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-87744982022-01-21 Genome Chaos, Information Creation, and Cancer Emergence: Searching for New Frameworks on the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer” Heng, Julie Heng, Henry H. Genes (Basel) Perspective The year 2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act, signed by President Nixon, which declared a national “war on cancer.” Powered by enormous financial support, this past half-century has witnessed remarkable progress in understanding the individual molecular mechanisms of cancer, primarily through the characterization of cancer genes and the phenotypes associated with their pathways. Despite millions of publications and the overwhelming volume data generated from the Cancer Genome Project, clinical benefits are still lacking. In fact, the massive, diverse data also unexpectedly challenge the current somatic gene mutation theory of cancer, as well as the initial rationales behind sequencing so many cancer samples. Therefore, what should we do next? Should we continue to sequence more samples and push for further molecular characterizations, or should we take a moment to pause and think about the biological meaning of the data we have, integrating new ideas in cancer biology? On this special anniversary, we implore that it is time for the latter. We review the Genome Architecture Theory, an alternative conceptual framework that departs from gene-based theories. Specifically, we discuss the relationship between genes, genomes, and information-based platforms for future cancer research. This discussion will reinforce some newly proposed concepts that are essential for advancing cancer research, including two-phased cancer evolution (which reconciles evolutionary contributions from karyotypes and genes), stress-induced genome chaos (which creates new system information essential for macroevolution), the evolutionary mechanism of cancer (which unifies diverse molecular mechanisms to create new karyotype coding during evolution), and cellular adaptation and cancer emergence (which explains why cancer exists in the first place). We hope that these ideas will usher in new genomic and evolutionary conceptual frameworks and strategies for the next 50 years of cancer research. MDPI 2021-12-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8774498/ /pubmed/35052441 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes13010101 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Perspective
Heng, Julie
Heng, Henry H.
Genome Chaos, Information Creation, and Cancer Emergence: Searching for New Frameworks on the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer”
title Genome Chaos, Information Creation, and Cancer Emergence: Searching for New Frameworks on the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer”
title_full Genome Chaos, Information Creation, and Cancer Emergence: Searching for New Frameworks on the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer”
title_fullStr Genome Chaos, Information Creation, and Cancer Emergence: Searching for New Frameworks on the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer”
title_full_unstemmed Genome Chaos, Information Creation, and Cancer Emergence: Searching for New Frameworks on the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer”
title_short Genome Chaos, Information Creation, and Cancer Emergence: Searching for New Frameworks on the 50th Anniversary of the “War on Cancer”
title_sort genome chaos, information creation, and cancer emergence: searching for new frameworks on the 50th anniversary of the “war on cancer”
topic Perspective
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8774498/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35052441
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes13010101
work_keys_str_mv AT hengjulie genomechaosinformationcreationandcanceremergencesearchingfornewframeworksonthe50thanniversaryofthewaroncancer
AT henghenryh genomechaosinformationcreationandcanceremergencesearchingfornewframeworksonthe50thanniversaryofthewaroncancer