Reply to Jiménez-Alonso et al., Schooling and Zhao, and Mortazavi: Further discussion on the immunological model of carcinogenesis

Autor: Sam Palmer, Timothy J. Newman, Luca Albergante, C. Clare Blackburn
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Popis: In our PNAS article (1), we explore the relationship between thymic involution and rising disease incidence with age. In letters from Jimenez-Alonso et al. (2), Schooling and Zhao (3), and Mortazavi (4), the authors point out several topics deserving further discussion. Experimental research has been unable to clearly determine whether the activity of the thymus dictates cancer risk. As Jimenez-Alonso et al. point out (2), there are experiments from the 1970s in which athymic mice are measured to have similar cancer risk to normal mice, while having increased risk of infectious diseases (5, 6). Furthermore, individuals with DiGeorge syndrome (DGS, 22q11.2 deletion syndrome) often have thymus problems and a higher risk of infectious diseases, yet some reports find that they have similar cancer risk (7, 8). On the other hand, there are experiments in which thymectomized mice displayed a higher cancer risk (9⇓⇓–12) and others in which thymus grafts on nude mice induce cancer remission (13, 14). In addition, there is an association between low T cell receptor excision circles (a by-product of T cell production) and certain cancers (15), and a perspective study found that short leukocyte telomeres predict cancer risk (16). We consider our article (1) to provide statistical support for thymic T cell output strongly influencing cancer incidence. In looking at these results, a few important points should be considered and these are discussed in the following paragraphs. First, the examples cited based on analysis of nude (athymic) mice are not ideal for answering questions about human carcinogenesis, which mostly occurs in or after late middle-age. The mice in these experiments (5, 6) had very short lifespans (one experiment … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: s.palmer{at}hw.ac.uk or tjnewman{at}solaravus.com. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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