Cancer Cell Communication Cool Scientific Discovery! http://www.gogonews.com/posts-Cancer+Cell+Communication-9799.html December 24, 2012 – Canadian scientists have discovered that cancerous tumour cells "trick" the normal cells around them into helping them spread throughout the body and multiply. We can imagine that conversation goes just like a conversation between a good person who is being manipulated by a bad person into doing something that they want, like, for example, giving them all of their money. The bad person talks to the good person and tells them why they need their money. The good person get tricked into not only giving the bad person directions to where all of their money is in their house, but they also tell the bad person the best place to break into the house using his tools and weapons. In the cancer cells, the bad guy that does the "talking" is a protein that is a part of tiny fragments of cells called exosomes. The cancerous tumour cells release exosomes that ask the good cells around it for help, and the normal cells release their exosomes that give the tumour cells advice on how to spread. When cancer cells spread from their original home –say from a lung into the bones– it greatly increases the person's chance of dying from the disease. If doctors are able to keep cells in one place it is much easier for them to remove the cancer from the source and treat it. A co-author of this cell study said that these findings will help doctors be able to target the specific "bad guy" cancer cells and the good cells that they are trying to trick instead of just targeting the entire cancerous tumours they create. It was previously thought that the "conversation" between cancer and normal cells was only equal to a dialogue of a few words or sentences. But the scientists have discovered that their conversations are more like big long paragraphs or speeches to one another! The scientists also tested their communication theory in cancer cells in lab mice and found that the same kind of communication occurs in animals as people. Answer the questions below using complete sentences. 1. What do cancer cells do in order to help them spread? 2. What is an exosome? 3. Why is it dangerous for cancer cells to “communicate” with neighbouring healthy cells? 4. How can this information help doctors treat cancer patients? 5. What is the most interesting piece of information you learned from this article?
