ISSN:
0020-7608
Keywords:
Chemistry
;
Theoretical, Physical and Computational Chemistry
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
Notes:
According to the central dogma of molecular biology, information flows in the living cell from DNA through RNA to proteins. Therefore most investigations of cancer initiation try to explain these effects by carcinogen binding to, or radiation hits on, DNA which lead to the first steps of the malignant transformations. On the other hand, recent detailed theoretical investigations have shown that proteins are good disordered hopping conductors (their conductivity is in the order of good conducting amorphous glasses). Their conductivity can be substantially influenced by binding of chemicals or by the effects of radiation if they cause conformational changes (as recent calculations have shown). These effects can also destroy bonds or generate new bonds in proteins. If the affected proteins are regulatory proteins, they can be inactivated in both ways. Namely, on the basis of Warburg's experiments, one can postulate that if the hindrance of oxygen metabolism leads to fermentation, and with it to the malignant transformation, this means also the hindrance of electron flow in the Szent-Györgyi-Krebs cycle. In other words the hindrance of electron transport in this cycle most probably has the same effect as the lack of oxygen, which in this way most probably leads again to a malignant transformation. Finally the inactivation of regulatory enzymes can influence also the regulation of the expression of oncogenes. If in this way oncogenes become overactivated (or antioncogenes become inactive), the changes started by the inactivation of regulatory enzymes become hereditary. It seems that if we look at the cell as a complicated self-regulatory system, primary changes both at their DNA or regulatory protein molecules caused by external agents can disturb its self-regulation and transform it in this way into another stationary, possibly precancerous, state. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quant Chem 64: 379-385, 1997
Additional Material:
2 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
