VT College of Science Quarterly August 2014 Vol. 2 No. 1 | Page 3

Genetically diverse cancer cells
key to brain tumor resistance
For a cancer cell, it pays to have a group of
eccentric friends.
Like X-Men characters, a group of cancer
cells with diverse physical traits is safer,
because it takes different strategies to kill each
member.
The more diverse the group, the better the
chances are for individual cells to survive and
join forces as a cohesive tumor.
A multi-university research team, including researchers with the Fralin Life Science
Institute at Virginia Tech, discovered that the
unique physical differences among brain
tumor cells were because of chromosomal
abnormalities.
Understanding the biology behind diverse
cell production in cancerous brain tumors may
contribute to knowledge for better treatments,
according to Jianhua Xing, an associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science and a Fralin Life Science Institute affiliate.
Xing, with Yi-Hong Zhou, an assistant professor of neurological surgery in the School of
Medicine at the University of California-Irvine,
concluded that tumor cells with genes that
have varying numbers of copies of chromo-

some 7 leads to cell diversity and survival of
brain tumors.
Cancer cells bypass the surveillance systems
that limit the number of copies of chromosomes in normal cells to produce an abnormal
number of chromosomes.
Zhou, whose research program is devoted to
developing novel drugs to treat brain cancer,
led the experimental portion of the project,
and Xing, an expert in mathematical modeling
of biological systems, analyzed the results.
The discovery was published in November in
PLOS One.
“Cancer is a biological entity that continues
to evolve, where the cancer ecosystem, with its
dynamic interactions among cancer cells and
normal cells, selects the best cells to survive,”
Zhou said. “Our findings presented only one
aspect, among many others, that cancer cells
use to change, with mis-segregation of chromosomes clearly being the most powerful one.
By applying this concept of cancer survivability, a rewarding therapeutic approach might
be developed through reducing random or
chance development of tumor cells, which we
are currently investigating.”

The project involved 21 members from the
University of California-Irvine, Virginia Tech,
the Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Long
Beach, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences academic health center, Ziren
Research LLC, and the National Engineering
Center for Biochip at Shanghai in China.
Key work was done by Yuanjie Hu, a graduate student at the University of CaliforniaIrvine; Hang Zhang of Hebei, China, a graduate
student at Virginia Tech; Xiao-Jun Tian, a
postdoctoral associate at Virginia Tech; and
two research specialists — Ning Ru of the
University of California-Irvine and Neil T. Hoa
of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Long
Beach.
“While it’s unlikely that this finding is the
only mechanism that controls cancer plasticity,
it is a piece of the puzzle,” said Xing. “Cancer
cells are, unfortunately, very smart. That is
why the battle against cancer is so difficult.”
by

Lindsay Taylor Key

Fralin LIfe Science Institute
FEBRUARY 2014

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