IN CERTAIN social circles, it鈥檚 not what you know, but who you know that counts. The same seems to be true of the gene switches that turn on cancer cells.
One way cells turn genes on and off is via small RNA molecules. In cancer, the usual pattern of microRNA production is disrupted. But as some miRNAs regulate many different genes, and each gene is affected by many different miRNAs, their exact role in cancer is tough to pin down.
, a cancer researcher at Ohio State University in Columbus, and his colleagues created a diagram of interacting miRNAs for normal body cells by connecting them according to which genes they target and the function of those genes, in a way similar to analyses of human social networks. Most miRNAs have limited effects, but it turns out that a few extend their influence in many directions 鈥� just as a few people in a social network seem to 鈥渒now everybody鈥�.
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When the researchers compared these networks for ordinary cells and for cells from 51 forms of cancer, they found that all the miRNAs of ordinary cells were connected in a single network. In contrast, the cancer cells often had subsets of miRNAs that were not connected to the rest of the network 鈥� rogue groups that had broken free.
What鈥檚 more, the highly connected 鈥渉ub鈥� miRNAs were often different for cancer cells (Genome Research, ). These unique hubs might represent key points of attack in cancer therapies, says Croce.
