Researchers from Sechenov University, affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Health, together with Russian and foreign colleagues, systematically evaluated the impact of tumors on adjacent normal tissues for the first time. The researchers concluded that tissue adjacent to the cancer lesion cannot be considered completely normal and should not be used as control samples. This issue was told to socialbites.ca at the First Moscow State Medical University named after him. Sechenov.
“So far, the problem of the impact of the tumor on neighboring tissues has not received sufficient attention. The tissue adjacent to the tumor was automatically considered normal, since from a morphological point of view its condition does not arouse suspicion, as a rule, due to the absence of visible cancer cells there. As our research has shown, if we consider the problem at the level of gene activity , a completely different picture emerges,” Anton Buzdin, principal investigator of the Institute of Personalized Oncology at Sechenov University, told socialbites.ca.
The processes of regulation of gene activity are impaired in cancer cells compared to normal cells. To evaluate these disorders, it is necessary to compare the gene expression level in the tumor and healthy tissue. Ideally, tissue samples located as far from the tumor as possible are needed, but in practice normal tissue adjacent to the tumor is most often used.
For the first time, scientists have systematically studied the effects of tumors on neighboring tissues for various types of cancer. They analyzed almost 5,000 gene activity profiles.
Scientists have identified a number of systemic differences at the molecular level associated with the development of inflammation and activation of immune cells, intracellular transport, cellular respiration, reorganization of the extracellular matrix and some other processes. Experts were able to prove that these differences are due precisely to the influence of the tumor, since the same changes are observed in cancerous tumors as in neighboring tissues.
The models discovered by scientists will allow more accurate interpretation of transcriptomic analysis results used both for research purposes and in personalized cancer treatment.
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