They are small portions of genome, so far considered irrelevant. Instead, just like modern Cinderella, they are demonstrating great potential against tumors.
It could be a turning point in the fight against cancer, and comes from elements that only a few years ago were considered unnecessary genetic materials. It is the so -called DNA “Cinderella”, That is, small portions of genome, DNA circles external to our chromosomes that could become a rump to develop increasingly personalized and effective oncological therapies and therefore a fight some types of tumors. The name, which obviously derives from the protagonist of the Disney fairy tale, is precisely to mean the fact that for long years its potential have been neglected: from a scientific point of view, we refer to at times of genome once called junk DNA (i.e. garbage DNA) precisely because- not producing proteins- they were considered useless and marginal. But now the story of these “circles” could change forever: three important Studies published on Naturetwo carried out by the American University of Stanford and the other by the British Institute Francis Crick, in fact, highlight the fact that the “Cinderella” portions could be involved in fundamental mechanisms for the development of different forms of cancer – including breast cancercolon-recto and glooblastomas tumors-and have discovered that specific regions of DNA Cinderella are activated abnormally in oncological patients. These results, if on the one hand they show that these molecules could be among the most relevant causes of many forms of cancer, on the other hand hopes open to the fact that they can be exploited for New care, highly personalizedable to hit the sick cells. It is therefore expected that, continuing with research, it may be possible in time not far both to change the Cinderella DNA with techniques already known as Crispr, to bring the genes back to balance and to block the regulatory centers to prevent it development of dangerous genesbut also develop new tumor markers and therefore be able to make more accurate and more early diagnoses.
How the studies took place
The researchers carried out research on about 15 thousand patients and 40 different forms of tumors, finding it in more than 17% of cases. They also found that the presence of DNA Cinderella was linked to lower survival rates, greater aggression of the disease and metastases. In the case of breast cancer, the percentage was very high, reaching almost 50%. However, it was discovered that Cinderella presents a important “Achilles heel”a weak point that could lead to great hopes especially in the case of stomach cancer: in fact, by blocking a control protein called CHK1, it has been possible to cause the death of the cells that contained the extrasromosomal DNA obtaining the regression of tumor in mice. The start of the clinical trial on human beings.
