An Emergence Framework of Carcinogenesis

Integrating frontiers: a holistic, quantum and evolutionary approach to conquering cancer through systems biology and multidisciplinary synergy

Cancer therapy is facing increasingly significant challenges, marked by a wide range of techniques and research efforts centered around somatic mutations, precision oncology, and the vast amount of big data. Despite this abundance of information, the quest to cure cancer often seems more elusive, with the "war on cancer" yet to deliver a definitive victory. A particularly pressing issue is the development of tumor treatment resistance, highlighting the urgent need for innovative approaches. Evolutionary, Quantum Biology and System Biology offer a promising framework for advancing experimental cancer research. By integrating theoretical studies, translational methods, and flexible multidisciplinary clinical research, there's potential to enhance current treatment strategies and improve outcomes for cancer patients. Establishing stronger links between evolutionary, quantum, entropy and chaos principles and oncology could lead to more effective treatments that leverage an understanding of the tumor's evolutionary dynamics, paving the way for novel methods to control and mitigate cancer. Achieving these objectives necessitates a commitment to multidisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration at the heart of both research and clinical endeavors in oncology. This entails dismantling silos between disciplines, encouraging open communication and data sharing, and integrating diverse viewpoints and expertise from the outset of research projects. Being receptive to new scientific discoveries and responsive to how patients react to treatments is also crucial. Such strategies are key to keeping the field of oncology at the forefront of effective cancer management, ensuring patients receive the most personalized and effective care. Ultimately, this approach aims to push the boundaries of cancer understanding, treating it as a manageable chronic condition, aiming to extend life expectancy and enhance patient quality of life.

A critical appraisal of the relative contribution of tissue architecture, genetics, epigenetics and cell metabolism to carcinogenesis

Here we contrast several carcinogenesis models. The somatic-mutation-theory posits mutations as main causes of malignancy. However, inconsistencies led to alternative explanations. For example, the tissue-organization-field-theory considers disrupted tissue-architecture as main cause. Both models can be reconciled using systems-biology-approaches, according to which tumors hover in states of self-organized criticality between order and chaos, are emergent results of multiple deviations and are subject to general laws of nature: inevitable variation(mutation) explainable by increased entropy(second-law-of-thermodynamics) or indeterminate decoherence upon measurement of superposed quantum systems(quantum mechanics), followed by Darwinian-selection. Genomic expression is regulated by epigenetics. Both systems cooperate. So cancer is neither just a mutational nor an epigenetic problem. Rather, epigenetics links environmental cues to endogenous genetics engendering a regulatory machinery that encompasses specific cancer-metabolic-networks. Interestingly, mutations occur at all levels of this machinery (oncogenes/tumor-suppressors, epigenetic-modifiers, structure-genes, metabolic-genes). Therefore, in most cases, DNA mutations may be the initial and crucial cancer-promoting triggers.

Information entropy of quantitative chemometric endogenous fluorescence improves photonic lung cancer diagnosis

Quantitative chemometric widefield endogenous fluorescence microscopy (CFM) maps the endogenous absolute chromophore concentration and spatial distribution in cells and tissue sections label-free from fluorescence color images under broadband excitation and detection. By quantifying the endogenous chromophores, including tryptophan, elastin, reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide [NAD(P)H], and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), CFM reveals the biochemical environment and subcellular structure. Here we show that the chromophore information entropy, marking its spatial distribution pattern of quantitative chemometric endogenous fluorescence at the microscopic scale, improves photonic lung cancer diagnosis with independent diagnostic power to the cellular metabolism biomarker. NAD(P)H and FAD's information entropy is found to decrease from normal to perilesional to cancerous tissue, whereas the information entropy for the redox ratios [FAD/tryptophan and FAD/NAD(P)H] is smaller for the normal tissue than both perilesional and cancerous tissue. CFM imaging of the specimen's inherent biochemical and structural properties eliminates the dependence on measurement details and facilitates robust, accurate diagnosis. The synergy of quantifying absolute chromophore concentration and information entropy achieves high accuracies for a three-class classification of lung tissue into normal, perilesional, and cancerous ones and a three-class classification of lung cancers into grade 1, grade 2, and grade 3 using a support vector machine, outperforming the chromophore concentration biomarkers.

Perspectives on Complexity, Chaos and Thermodynamics in Environmental Pathology

Though complexity science and chaos theory have become a common scientific divulgation theme, medical disciplines, and pathology in particular, still rely on a deterministic, reductionistic approach and still hesitate to fully appreciate the intrinsic complexity of living beings. Herein, complexity, chaos and thermodynamics are introduced with specific regard to biomedical sciences, then their interconnections and implications in environmental pathology are discussed, with particular regard to a morphopathological, image analysis-based approach to biological interfaces. Biomedical disciplines traditionally approach living organisms by dissecting them ideally down to the molecular level in order to gain information about possible molecule to molecule interactions, to derive their macroscopic behaviour. Given the complex and chaotic behaviour of living systems, this approach is extremely limited in terms of obtainable information and may lead to misinterpretation. Environmental pathology, as a multidisciplinary discipline, should grant privilege to an integrated, possibly systemic approach, prone to manage the complex and chaotic aspects characterizing living organisms. Ultimately, environmental pathology should be interested in improving the well-being of individuals and the population, and ideally the health of the entire ecosystem/biosphere and should not focus merely on single diseases, diseased organs/tissues, cells and/or molecules.

Remote control of magnetic nanocomplexes for delivery and destruction of cancer cells

Although nanotechnology advances have been exploited for a myriad of purposes, including cancer diagnostics and treatment, still there is little discussion about the mechanisms of remote control. Our main aim here is to explain the possibility of a magnetic field control over magnetic nanocomplexes to improve their delivery, controlled release and antitumor activity. In doing so we considered the nonlinear dynamics of magnetomechanical and magnetochemical effects based on free radical mechanisms in cancer development for future pre-clinical studies.

Germline variation networks in the PI3K/AKT pathway corresponding to familial high-incidence lung cancer pedigrees

Background

There were scarcely germline variants of familial lung cancer (LC) identified. We conducted an study with whole-exome sequencing of pedigrees with familial lung cancer to analyze the potential genetic susceptibility.

Methods

Probands with the highest hereditary background were identified by our large-scale epidemiological study and five ones were enrolled as a learning set. The germline SNPs (single-nucleotide polymorphisms) of other five similar probands, four healthy individuals in the formerly pedigrees and three patients with sporadic LC were used as a validation set, controlled by three healthy individuals without family history of any cancer. The network of mutated genes was generated using STRING-DB and visualized using Cytoscape.

Results

Specific and shared somatic mutations and germline SNPs were not the shared cause of familial lung cancer. However, individual germline SNPs showed distinct protein-protein interaction network patterns in probands versus healthy individuals and patients with sporadic lung cancer. SNP-containing genes were enriched in the PI3K/AKT pathway. These results were validated in the validation set. Furthermore, patients with familial lung cancer were distinguished by many germline variations in the PI3K/AKT pathway by a simple SVM classification method. It is worth emphasizing that one person with many germline variations in the PI3K/AKT pathway developed lung cancer during follow-up.

Conclusions

The phenomenon that the enrichments of germline SNPs in the PI3K/AKT pathway might be a major predictor of familial susceptibility to lung cancer.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12885-020-07528-3.

Is oculofacial surgery complex … or merely complicated?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

There is confusion in all of healthcare, including oculofacial surgery, as to what is 'complex' and what is 'merely complicated'. Although in common usage, these terms tend to be interchangeable, the distinction is more than trivial. A different and somewhat unfamiliar toolset is needed to successfully navigate complex problems. This review will explore a methodology for the physician to understand what is complex in oculofacial surgery, the tools needed to optimize performance in a complex healthcare system and successfully manage patients with complex diseases.

RECENT FINDINGS

A specific understanding of complexity science in oculofacial surgery is only in its nascent beginnings at this point. Nevertheless, recent advances in closely related fields can provide concrete applications. The practice of oculofacial surgery is optimized within a healthcare network of supporting professionals. Moreover, a newer understanding of the 'complex' nature of disease common to oculofacial surgery, such as neoplasia and inflammation, will direct the physician to recognize the most appropriate therapies.

SUMMARY

Oculofacial surgery, like all of medicine, is a fluid mixture of problems that are complex and those that are merely complicated. As a different toolset is needed to deal with each, physicians need to recognize these differences and acquire those tools.