Genetic Drift Causing Tumour Development
In a world that is constantly evolving, mainly for the better survival of the living organism, one can notice an increase in cancer patients across the world. Many believe that the cause of this is the over consumption of processed food to have little to no nutritional value to them. A researcher by the name Aranda-Anzaldo, dives into the discussion of cancer development and progressions, concluding that genetic drift is causing gene-functions to become non-relevant once an individual has past their reproductive time. This analysis of Aranda-Anzaldo’s primary article gives the reader an insight into how genetic drift can be a leading cause to the development of tumors within individuals.
Usually when evolution occurs within a species, natural selection allows species to adapt and change to new environments. These changes are to provide an advantage to the species, for instance the polar bear has evolved to have white fur to be able to camouflage themselves within the snowy arctic. Researchers have believed that “tumour development and progression is then explained as a sort of micro-evolutionary process, whereby an initial genetic alteration leads to abnormal proliferation of a single cell that leads to a population of clonally derived cells” (A). The idea is that tumour cells are becoming responsive to natural selection, independent from the individual organism. When these cells start responding to pressure and change within the body, independently from the rest of the organism, they begin to evolve on their own. When these cells micro-evolve on their own, they begin to clone themselves, creating a tumor or mass within the organism. However, it is not clear yet as to why these cells act independently from the whole organism causing Aranda-Anzaldo to believe that these cells are the consequence of genetic drift. When individuals past their reproductive prime, for example a female entering menopause, those gene functions become non-relevant to the individual’s survival. Now for the short term, this is not an issue, but over time when more genes start to become non-relevant, these drifted gene functions can affect how the functional genes act. Thus, causing a bigger change in the long run, the development of cancer cells. This could explain why an increasing number of elderly people are starting to get cancer, but it does not explain why children are getting cancer at such a young age. While the first idea of cells acting independently may not explain the issues of why cells act that way, it could explain why children get cancer at such a young age.
After analyzing the primary article, it can be concluded that cancer research has come a long way in the past couple decades. Research like Aranda-Anzaldo are trying to think of different ways that cancer cells are developing and what could potentially be a fix to the problem. Initially it was understood that cancer cells would first act differently from the rest of the organism and then micro-evolve independently. These cells would then reproduce and multiply into multiple cells with the same micro-evolution. This this idea was not backup as to why this occurred, Aranda-Anzaldo believed that genetic drift was the cause as to why cancer cells developed in the first place. Once cancer cells can be understood on how they act and how they behave in the body, they can then find a way to prevent these things from happening. The next step with this research article is to discover a way to prevent these non-relevant genes from drifting and effecting the more relevant genes from doing their normal operations. Over time it will be fascinating to discover what truly causes these cells to act independently and find a way to prevent this from happening.
References
Aranda-Anzaldo A. Cancer development and progression: a non-adaptive process driven by genetic drift. Acta Biotheor. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1010215424196 (2001).