cncabej{at}aol.com (CNCabej) wrote in
news:c30p1v$2t8e$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org: 

> Cancer is generally considered to be an abnormal growth of cells
> caused by mutations in DNA induced by carcinogenic substances, viral
> oncogenes, ionizing radiations etc. Although evidence has been
> insufficient, and it has also been argued that often this relationship
> was not seen, the mutational theory of cancer is the explanation we
> find in every textbook. A recent experiment raises doubts about the
> validity of the dogma. Investigators show that mutation in the 
> Ha-ras-1 gene is sometime found in normal mammary gland and is absent
> in cancerous cells. Here is the abstract published in the Journal of
> Cell Science on March , 2 2004.

(snip)

> Our results suggest
> that the stroma is a crucial target of the carcinogen and that 
> mutation in the Ha-ras-1 gene is neither necessary nor sufficient for
> tumor initiation.
 
> I am not predicting (although I am not excluding) that this will start
> a chain reaction of experiments designed to prove the EPIGENETIC
> origin of cancer, but it should make us rethink what is real
> (production of proteins) and what is fictious (determination of
> morphology, etiology of diseases, etc.) on the role of genes in
> biology. 


The article, as I read it, has nothing to do with epigenetic origins of 
cancer.It simply says that the changes leading to the cancer occur in 
stromal cells rather than epithelial cells. 

Yours,

Bill Morse
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