Blog Comments

Kinetica Online is pleased to provide direct links to commentaries from our senior editor Dr. Steven Pelech has posted on other blogs sites. Most of these comments appear on the GenomeWeb Daily Scan website, which in turn highlight interesting blogs that have been posted at numerous sites in the blogosphere since the beginning of 2010. A wide variety of topical subjects are covered ranging from the latest scientific breakthroughs, research trends, politics and career advice. The original blogs and Dr. Pelech’s comments are summarized here under the title of the original blog. Should viewers wish to add to these discussions, they should add their comments at the original blog sites.

The views expressed by Dr. Pelech do not necessarily reflect those of the other management and staff at Kinexus Bioinformatics Corporation. However, we wish to encourage healthy debate that might spur improvements in how biomedical research is supported and conducted.

Protein kinase C

Microbes of Cancer

Shin Yoshimoto from the Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research and colleagues reported that although mice fed a high-fat or a lean diet did not have differing rates of hepatocellular carcinoma, when mice on those diets were also exposed to a carcinogen, namely DMBA, mice on the high-fat developed liver cancer while those on the lean diet did not. The investigators implicated the gut microbiome has a hand in this effect as the fatty diet leads to changes in the levels of deoxycholic acid (DCA) present in the gut. S. Pelech wonders about the novelty of these findings as it has been known for more than 20 years that bile acids such as DCA and other derivatives produced by microbial action from cholic acid secreted by the liver into the gut are activators of protein kinase C (PKC) isoforms in intestinal epithelial and other types of cells. PKC isoforms are the best known targets for a diversity of tumour promoting compounds. Read More...