Nitrogen & Cancer Diagnostics

Posted: 9/4/2018

Motto: Cancer is history!

Trigger

Just read Disrupted Nitrogen Metabolism Might Spell Cancer Tests show that too little of this basic element is as problematic as too much.

Here is the link to the scientific paper: Urea Cycle Dysregulation Generates Clinically Relevant Genomic and Biochemical Signatures

This article is about urea cycle dysregulation (UCD; increases & decreases of urea levels), which is common in multiple cancers. UCD increases leads to mutation bias.  UCD serves as a biomarker in cancer patients’ bio-fluids. “Taken together, our findings demonstrate that UCD is a common feature of tumors that profoundly affects carcinogenesis, mutagenesis, and immunotherapy response.”

“These pyrimidine-related mutations are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they render the cancer more aggressive, reducing patients’ survival, but they also generate protein fragments that make the tumor more “sensitive” than average to the impact of the immune system. Therefore, tumors with a dysregulated urea cycle are more likely to be susceptible to immunotherapy” (emphasis added)

As always, presuming this research will be confirmed.

Significance

Caveat: I am not an expert!

1. This research may lead to fairly simple and practical diagnostics for multiple different cancers (e.g. liver, melanoma)
2. Possibly, early detection of multiple multiple different cancers
3. Possibly, a way to make multiple different cancers more responsive to immunotherapy
4. Possibly, a way to check the effectiveness of a immunotherapy
5. Possibly, new treatments based on induced urea cycle dysregulation