文章：

物理学和癌症有什么关系？

What does physics have to do with cancer?

原文发布日期：2011-08-18

DOI: 10.1038/nrc3092

类型: Review Article

开放获取: 否

要点：

1. Approaches from the physical sciences can contribute to the rate at which powerful new diagnostic tools and therapies can be discovered and brought into the clinic. We provide examples from four areas to describe how teams of physical scientists, cancer biologists, clinicians and cancer advocates are tackling cancer from the perspective of the physical sciences.
2. The principles of evolutionary biology can be used to study the mechanisms and dynamics of tumour initiation, tumour progression, the response to treatment and the emergence of resistance. For example, large-scale cross-sectional genomic data sets can be combined with novel evolutionary approaches to predict the temporal order of somatic events that arise during tumorigenesis. Such knowledge helps to guide the generation of the correct genomic context in animal models of human cancer and helps to prioritize the validation of potential drug targets.
3. DNA in vivo is often sharply distorted away from the canonical Watson–Crick structure; different DNA sequences vary greatly in the ease with which such sharp distortions can be accommodated. Most of the eukaryotic genomic DNA is bent around histones to form nucleosomes. The capacity of the DNA sequence to undergo such distortion can influence the specific preferred locations for many of the nucleosomes.
4. The existence of a cancerous lesion can sometimes be detected through the analysis of the altered behaviour of cells that are located substantial distances away from the primary lesion, a phenomenon that is known as the 'field effect'. Partial wave spectroscopy takes advantage of the field effect to allow for the sensitive and specific detection of cancers in tissues that are difficult to reach.
5. Cancer is an extraordinarily complex disease. Methods that are commonly used in physics can reduce the complexity of cancer to a manageable set of underlying principles and phenomena. In particular, Transport OncoPhysics views cancer as a disease of multiscale mass transport deregulation involving the biological barriers that separate different body compartments. Probes that can be used to investigate the mass transport properties of tissues can be used as directed vectors for the localized, preferential release of therapeutics into tumours.

要点翻译：

1. 物理科学的方法有助于加速发现强大的新型诊断工具和疗法并应用于临床。我们通过四个领域的案例来说明由物理科学家、癌症生物学家、临床医生和癌症倡导者组成的团队如何从物理科学的角度攻克癌症。
2. 进化生物学原理可用于研究肿瘤发生、进展、治疗反应及耐药性产生的机制与动态过程。例如，将大规模跨组学基因组数据集与新型进化研究方法相结合，可预测肿瘤发生过程中体细胞突变的时间顺序。这类知识有助于指导人类癌症动物模型中正确基因组环境的构建，并优先验证潜在药物靶点。
3. 体内DNA常显著偏离经典沃森-克里克结构；不同DNA序列承受这种剧烈扭曲的能力存在显著差异。真核生物基因组DNA大多缠绕组蛋白形成核小体。DNA序列承受扭曲的能力会影响许多核小体的特异性优选定位。
4. 通过分析远离原发病灶的细胞行为改变（即"场效应"现象），有时可检测到癌性病变的存在。部分波光谱技术利用场效应原理，可对难以触及的组织实现灵敏特异的癌症检测。
5. 癌症是异常复杂的疾病。物理学常用方法可将癌症复杂性简化为可管理的基础原理与现象集。特别地，运输肿瘤物理学将癌症视为多尺度质量运输失调的疾病，涉及区隔不同体腔的生物屏障。可用于研究组织质量运输特性的探针，能作为定向载体实现治疗药物在肿瘤部位的局部优先释放。

英文摘要：

Large-scale cancer genomics, proteomics and RNA-sequencing efforts are currently mapping in fine detail the genetic and biochemical alterations that occur in cancer. However, it is becoming clear that it is difficult to integrate and interpret these data and to translate them into treatments. This difficulty is compounded by the recognition that cancer cells evolve, and that initiation, progression and metastasis are influenced by a wide variety of factors. To help tackle this challenge, the US National Cancer Institute Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers initiative is bringing together physicists, cancer biologists, chemists, mathematicians and engineers. How are we beginning to address cancer from the perspective of the physical sciences?

摘要翻译： 

大规模癌症基因组学、蛋白质组学和RNA测序研究，正在精细描绘癌症中发生的遗传与生化改变。然而，整合并解读这些数据、将其转化为治疗手段却日益困难；癌症会演进，且其起始、进展与转移受众多因素影响，这使难度进一步加剧。为应对这一挑战，美国国家癌症研究所“物理科学-肿瘤学中心”计划正汇聚物理学家、癌症生物学家、化学家、数学家和工程师。我们该如何从物理科学的角度开始攻克癌症？

原文链接：

What does physics have to do with cancer?