Interaction of cancer cells with normal cells
Answers
Answer:
Cancer remains one of the most difficult diseases to treat. Despite the best efforts of physicians, many deaths are caused because patients gradually cease to respond to their treatment. This enables the cancer to spread throughout the body and establish additional tumors. This development of resistance to treatment and spread of the cancer is associated with increased expression of signals that help cancer cells survive therapy and continue to grow. Understanding how these signals work and how to counteract them will provide more options for treating cancer patients. One of these survival signals comes from a compound called autotaxin. Autotaxin is not properly regulated and its production increases during many cancer treatments. This results in the production of more survival signals, which makes cancers more difficult to treat. It is commonly believed that autotaxin is overexpressed in the cancer cells themselves. The research is showing that most autotaxin expression comes from normal cells that surround the cancer cells. These normal cells respond to damage produced by cancer treatments during chemotherapy and radiation therapy. As a result, these normal cells increase their production of autotaxin to protect themselves and to repair the damage. Equally, cancer cells interact with the normal cells that surround the tumor and increase the production of autotaxin. This allows cancer cells to acquire even more autotaxin from normal cells and ensure their survival. These events are part of a vicious cycle that gradually decreases the effectiveness of the treatments for the cancer patient. The purpose of my work is to understand the interactions between normal cells and cancer cells within the tumor. By doing this,it will discover how to prevent the production of autotaxin and therefore be able to improve the effectiveness of treatment for cancer patients.
Answer:
Explanation:
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) exhibit many functions in biological activities. Recent studies have shown that miRNAs exist outside cells and are transferred between cells. Extracellular miRNAs are protected from ribonucleases found in body fluids through binding to specific proteins or by being encapsulated in lipid bilayer vesicles. Here, we review the mechanisms of the secretion and uptake as well as the functions of extracellular miRNAs, particularly those encapsulated in extracellular vesicles. Extracellular vesicles are related to cancer progression, and some miRNAs in extracellular vesicles are associated with cancer cells. We describe the transfer of cancer-related miRNAs between cancer cells and non-cancerous cells. Finally, we discuss the anticipated applications of miRNAs present in extracellular vesicles in diagnostics and therapeutics.
Keywords: Extracellular RNA, Extracellular vesicle (EV), Exosome, MicroRNA (miRNA), Cancer, Cancer therapy