Basic Pathology: An Introduction to Mechanisms of Disease (2nd edn). S. R. Lakhani, S. A. Dily and C. J. Finlayson. Arnold, London, 1998. Price: �18.99
✍ Scribed by Porter, D. E.; Simpson, A. H. R. W.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 49 KB
- Volume
- 190
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-3417
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Sonnenschein and Soto revive the tissue organization ®eld theory of carcinogenesis. They posit that in adult multicellular organisms there are discrete units or ®elds of tissue maintenance and/or organization, supporting the concept of a `society of cells'. In such units, cell proliferation is held in check by constraints which are dictated by local conditions in the cellular environment. Disruption of tissue organization between the parenchyma and stroma of an organ will tend to disturb these local effects and disinhibit the checks on proliferation which have evolved with multicellularity. This could lead to a spectrum of responses from hyperplasia through dysplasia to carcinoma. It ¯ies directly in the face of the widely held mutation theory of cancer, where control is hypothesized to be effected by tumour-suppressor genes or oncogenes.
Several pages are dedicated to a discussion on the shortcomings of the somatic mutation theory of carcinogenesis. The contradictory assumption that a disturbance of cell cycle switching (from quiescence to proliferation) is equivalent to proliferation is discussed in detail. Clearly, much has been learned in the past decades about cell cycle progression (cyclins, kinases, etc.), virus±host interactions, signal transduction, etc. However, despite heavy investment, the exploration of intracellular mechanisms has not yet delivered the hoped-for insights into the nature of cancer. The authors argue that the somatic mutation theory may have run its useful course.
They cannot actually prove many of the things that they propose, but equally, it must be admitted that