Cancer as a mechanism of hypermutation.
The highly structured mechanisms of cancers, their tendency to occur as a response to environmental stress, and the existence of oncogenes, suggest that neoplasticity may represent more than a biological disfunction. It is proposed that cancer exists as a phylogenetic mechanism serving to promote "hyperevolution", albeit at the expense of the ontogeny, that is similar to a process recently discovered in bacterial mutations. Cell-surface-associated nucleic acid in tumorigenic cells and sperm cell vectorization of foreign DNA indicate the existence of essential mechanisms necessary to the occurrence of cancer mediated hyperevolution. An analysis of the proposed mechanism indicates that for mutagenesis of chemical cytology, stress induced neoplasticity confers an evolutionary advantage of more than two orders of magnitude.
Walker
E H
EH
U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD 21005.
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D009154:Mutation / Q000502:physiology*; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000150:complications*