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electricity, all dark and devastating. Abnormally functioning mitochondria are the trademark of various deadly diseases such as cancer.
Let us get a little background of the scientific plot. We are trying to address a basic biology question involving the role of mitochondria in cancer. Our body has 30–40 trillion cells, out of which some
cells divide into two and some
die to maintain this number.
The cancer cells do not die
and keep on dividing to form
tumours (aggregates of cells)
in the body or the organ they
affect. On jumping a traffic
signal, the driver gets penalized
by the policemen, if he/she
gets caught. The cancer cells
evade all the cell death signals,
without even being reprimanded by the body’s police, the immune cells. Hence, they keep on growing and harming the normal cells and organs of the body, eventually causing death. The cancer cells are smart enough to fool the body police and spread their network. They even smuggle the resources of the common people (the normal cells) and create havoc. They make their own set of rules to sustain, like depending on mitochondria for energy. WHY? Because the cancer cells obtain energy without
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using oxygen, which is a simpler process than the mitochondrial energy generation; instead, they use mitochondria for growth and division. A cell goes completely out of control in cancer with major changes to its functioning, but how does this happen? It is really important to know who or what has instilled such villainous tendencies in cancer cells.
A single cause is not responsible for the birth of this deadly disease, but the underlying phenomenon is the mutations in the genes, which keep a check on cell multiplication and growth. Genes are nothing but sequences of DNA, the genetic material (gets transferred from one generation to the other) found in the nucleus (the monitor). Mutations are defined as changes in DNA sequences brought about by various environmental and hereditary factors. Mutations can be genetic, that is, they get transmitted from one generation to the other or over generations; environmental (exposure
to hazardous chemicals at workplace, pollution, ultraviolet rays of the sun, etc.) and acquired due to our lifestyle (eating unhealthy, lack of exercise, etc.).
Nowadays, there is a paradigm shift in understanding the origin of cancer from classical genomic to modern metabolic. It is now being recognized as a disease of
metabolism (the conversion of food into energy) involving mitochondria. Let us put it this way: when mitochondria in a cell go bad (Villain/Ravana) or function abnormally, it leads to an array of events promoting cancer. This is fulfilled by switching on and off the proteins involved in cell growth and development by influencing the cell’s nucleus.
When the mitochondria of the cancer cells are made inactive, the cells grow slowly and are unable to survive without additional
Cells are the basic functional and structural units of an organism. To function well, they are helped by a lot of assistants known as the organelles, and mitochondria are one of them.