From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 29 2002 - 15:05:31 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
On Thu, 29 Aug 2002, Damien Broderick wrote:
>
> When tumor cells are damaged by radiation or chemical attack, might the
> breaching of their boundaries allow a gale of telomerase to `infect'
> adjacent cells, and maybe render some neoplastic that had all the
> preliminary malign mutations *except* for a switched-on telomerase gene?
There isn't any real "breaching of their boundaries" that I'm aware of.
(Rafal comments?)
### Telomerase released (in presumably incredibly small amounts) from
damaged and dying cells would not be taken up efficiently by other cells,
except if it had by some coincidence affinity for receptors on their surface
(like the steroid or thyroid family). I agree with Robert it would be very
unlikely to disrupt neighboring cells. The uptake of telomerase would not
switch the telomerase gene on, so it would be a very temporary boost, not
sufficient to confer a long-term growth potential.
Rafal
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