Cancer as a Programmed Death of an Organism

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A. V. Lichtenstein

Institute of Carcinogenesis, Blokhin Cancer Research Center, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, 115478 Moscow, Russia; fax: (7-095) 324-1205; E-mail: alicht@online.ru

Received March 16, 2005

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The hypothesis introduces the idea that there is a critical level of mutagenesis that triggers a program of organism death by means of proliferation of killer cells. Similarly to apoptosis, which is an altruistic suicidal act of a faulty cell threatening the stability of a multicellular organism, a malignant tumor is an altruistic suicide of an individual carrier of harmful alleles threatening genetic stability of the population.

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KEY WORDS: carcinogenesis, apoptosis, programmed organism death, evolution, mutagenesis

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