Washington: A new study claimed that tumour growth in some cancers may be due to low oxygen levels in cells.
Ying Xu, Regents-Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and professor of bioinformatics and computational biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, said that if hypoxia, or low oxygen levels in cells, is proven to be a major factor of certain types of cancer, treatment plans for curing the malignant growth could change in significant ways.
Previous studies connected low oxygen levels in cells as a contributing factor in cancer development, but not as the force causing cancer growth.
“Cancer drugs try to get to the root-at the molecular level-of a particular mutation, but the cancer often bypasses it,” Xu said.
“So we think that possibly genetic mutations may not be the main driver of cancer,” Xu said.
Much of cancer research so far has focused on designing drug treatments that counteract genetic mutations associated with a particular type of cancer.
The new blood vessels provide fresh oxygen, thus improving oxygen levels in the cell and tumour and slowing the cancer growth-but only temporarily.
“When a cancer cell gets more food, it grows; this makes the tumor biomass bigger and even more hypoxic. In turn, the energy-conversion efficiency goes further down, making the cells even more hungry and triggering the cells to get more food from blood circulation, creating a vicious cycle. This could be a key driver of cancer,” Xu added.
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