Fyzikální ústav Akademie věd ČR

Stark effect and oncogene mutation

Seminar Tuesday, 21/06/2016 10:00 - 11:00

Speakers: Jan Pokorný (Fyzikální ústav AV ČR, oddělení dielektrik)
Place: lecture hall of IoP, Slovanka
Presented in English
Organisers: Department of Dielectrics

Abstrakt:

Viruses are known to be one of the most important risk factors for cancer development in humans. After entering a living cell, a virus harnesses the cell’s machinery for its replication. Some viruses achieve it by inserting their DNA or RNA into that of the host cell. Altering the genome of the host cell can trigger cancer transformation. Our experimental data demonstrate that cancer initiation is commonly linked with lactate dehydrogenase-elevating (LDH) virus, and a novel insight into cancer initiation process with a complex biophysical mechanism is presented.

LDH virus is a silent virus causing no observable morphological changes on the host cell. Its RNAs chronically consume ATP as energy resource. We investigated cell-mediated immunity (CMI) response of T lymphocytes to individual tumour-specific antigens, effective only in the cancer type of the antigen origin, and non-specific LDH-virus antigen which turned out to be effective in all examined cancers. Both antigens were immunologically functional fractions separated by high-pressure gel chromatography at 340 nm. Analysis of experimental data on CMI response related to about 12,000 cases of healthy humans, cancer patients and patients with precancerous cervical lesions disclosed that the specific cancer and the non-specific LDH-virus antigens elicit similar responses. CMI results of patients with precancerous lesions display both healthy and cancer states.

It is known that chemical reactions depend on strong enough electric field which can power catalysis and affect their rate. Therefore, biochemical activity may be affected by near electromagnetic field of coherent electric polar vibrations which are present in the cell. Analysis of the effect of the cellular electromagnetic field on biochemical bonds is based on the reverse vibrational Stark effect. Overlapping of wave functions in biological macromolecules depends on energy of the cellular electromagnetic field which supplies energy to bonding electrons for selective chemical bonds. Decreased cellular field due to parasitic energy consumption of the viral RNAs results in reduced ratio of coherent/random oscillations. Decreased effect of coherent cellular electromagnetic field on bonding electrons in biological macromolecules leads to elevating probability of random reactions including the genome ones. The described mechanism can explain massive occurrence of nonlocal genome somatic mutations in cancer cell.

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