Tumors, cyclopean sheep and cancer causing genes
Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 6:06 pm
Or, why Sonic hedgehog is bad for you.
"Idaho sheep ranchers couldn't figure out why, in the decade after World War II, a random atch of their lambs were being born with strange birth defects. The creatures had underdeveloped brains and a singly eye planted, cyclops-like, in the middle of their foreheads. In 1957 they called in scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate.
"The scientists worked for 11 years to solve the mystery. One of them, Lynn James, lived with the sheep for three summers before discovering the culprit: corn lilies. When the animals moved to higher ground during droughts, they snacked on the flowers. The lilies, it turns out, contained a poison, later dubbed cyclopamine, that stunted developing lamb embryos. The mothers remained unharmed. The clase of the cyclopamine and the one-eyed Idaho lambs remained a freakish chemistry footnote for the next 25 years; researchers could never uncover why cyclopamine caused birth defects.
"But now cancer researchers have improbably seized on the obscure plant chemical as the blueprint for a half-dozen promising tumor-fighters. Cyclopamine, it turns out, blocks the function of a gene called Sonic hedgehog that is essential for embryonic development but also plays a lead rule in causing deadly cancers of the pancreas, skin, prostate and esophagus."
(Forbes, Nov. 28th, 2005 - "The Curious Case of the One-Eyed Sheep", p. 70)
See? Sonic IS a bad influence!
"Idaho sheep ranchers couldn't figure out why, in the decade after World War II, a random atch of their lambs were being born with strange birth defects. The creatures had underdeveloped brains and a singly eye planted, cyclops-like, in the middle of their foreheads. In 1957 they called in scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to investigate.
"The scientists worked for 11 years to solve the mystery. One of them, Lynn James, lived with the sheep for three summers before discovering the culprit: corn lilies. When the animals moved to higher ground during droughts, they snacked on the flowers. The lilies, it turns out, contained a poison, later dubbed cyclopamine, that stunted developing lamb embryos. The mothers remained unharmed. The clase of the cyclopamine and the one-eyed Idaho lambs remained a freakish chemistry footnote for the next 25 years; researchers could never uncover why cyclopamine caused birth defects.
"But now cancer researchers have improbably seized on the obscure plant chemical as the blueprint for a half-dozen promising tumor-fighters. Cyclopamine, it turns out, blocks the function of a gene called Sonic hedgehog that is essential for embryonic development but also plays a lead rule in causing deadly cancers of the pancreas, skin, prostate and esophagus."
(Forbes, Nov. 28th, 2005 - "The Curious Case of the One-Eyed Sheep", p. 70)
See? Sonic IS a bad influence!
