Most people are familiar with the fact that the transition from a benign cell to a malignant one involves a “state change” within the cell.  While the driving mechanism may not be the same as the one that fosters changes in stem cells, scientists are still interested in learning more about cellular state change mechanisms.  Recently, Jeffrey Laney, a researcher at Brown University found a promising mechanism.

The genetic material for a cell is usually bound up in proteins that inhibit expression under certain conditions.   Nevertheless, each cell has all of the genes required to create various kinds of tissue within a given organism.  Laney found that there are cellular mechanisms that will remove protein and other compounds from genes that have the capacity to transform the cell into some other tissue type.

Laney’s research involved studying yeast cells during a phase of development when they are changing into the alpha, or reproductive form.  As the cell transformed from one state to the other, regulatory proteins were removed from the certain areas of the DNA  in order to enable synthesis.  Once protein synthesis was completed, other regulatory proteins were used to restore the original cap on the gene.

Even though Laney conducted his research on bacterial cells, it may still have profound implications with regards to processes that go on in animal and plant cells.   Historically speaking, yeast cells have provided all kinds of valuable information about similar genetic components in human cells.

That said, it is also important to realize that mechanisms to control gene expression in a cell with multiple DNA strands may be very different from those found in an organism with just one DNA strand.  This may even include expression and inhibition of certain genes based on the way DNA strands fold back and around each other during routine growth phases.