Hypothesis

Mutation of mitochondria genome: trigger of somatic cell transforming to cancer cell

Du Jianping

Department of Oncology, Anhui Provincial Hospital, 9 Lujiang Road, Hefei 230001, PR China

author email corresponding author email

International Archives of Medicine 2010, 3:4doi:10.1186/1755-7682-3-4

Published:	5 February 2010

Abstract

Nearly 80 years ago, scientist Otto Warburg originated a hypothesis that the cause of cancer is primarily a defect in energy metabolism. Following studies showed that mitochondria impact carcinogenesis to remodel somatic cells to cancer cells through modifying the genome, through maintenance the tumorigenic phenotype, and through apoptosis. And the Endosymbiotic Theory explains the origin of mitochondria and eukaryotes, on the other hands, the mitochondria also can fall back. Compared to chromosome genomes, the mitochondria genomes were not restricted by introns so they were mutated(fall back) easy. The result is that mitochondria lose function and internal environment of somatic cell become acid and evoked chromosome genomes to mutate, in the end somatic cells become cancer cells. It is the trigger of somatic cell transforming to cancer cell that mitochondria genome happen mutation and lose function.