• Question: If i were to create a clone from a cell with cancer, would the rest of the clone's cells have cancer?

    Asked by celt105 to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 16 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 16 Nov 2012:

      hi celt,
      Interesting question!
      it will be hard to create a clone from a cancer cell in the first place. But lets think that through! If we take a cancer cell and remove the nucleus, we remove all the genes. In cloning, that nucleus would then be injected into a oocyte.

      THere is a problem here: Cancer genomes are really completely screwed up in most cases. They have amplifications of genes which make the cell divide, they may have lost complete chromosomes, or have three copies of one chromosome. They probably have lost a few genes which control cell division. It will probably not be possible to built an organism starting with this mess.

      I think the oocyte will kill itsself right away or nothing happens, or you get cancer right away. I think to get a clone is not possible. But in a way you are right, that then all the cells derived from that one cancer nucleus, will “have cancer”. Genetically speaking.

      I just remember one thing: I was on a conference about cancer and stem cells, and someone managed to get a pluripotent stem cell out of a cancer cell. Which means he started with a cancer cell, turned it into a stem cell, and these stem cells now can produce all kinds of body cells.

      This question is really tricky! Maybe you can get a healthy clone out of your cancer cell. But probably you have to choose your cancer cell carefully.

    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 18 Nov 2012:

      Scientists have actually managed to clone cancer-free embryos from mouse brain tumour cells. To do this, the scientists removed nuclei from mouse brain tumour cells and transplanted these into mouse eggs whose own nuclei had been removed. The cloned embryos that were produced had normal non-cancerous tissues, even though the mutations causing the cancer were still present. This work showed that it was possible to reporgram the cancer cells, and also suggested that genetic mutations alone are not always the sole reason for cancer occurring, i.e. that environmental factors that have an effect on cells are also important. So I guess the answer to your question is ‘not necessarily.’

      Here’s an interesting fact though, did you know that Dolly the Sheep, the first ever cloned mammal had a form of lung cancer when she died? It wasn’t anything to do with the fact that she was cloned though, she had caught a virus that causes cancer. Poor Dolly…

    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 18 Nov 2012:

      Celt, that is a very good and complicated question.

      Most cancers start from cells whose genes are damaged, and who consequently grow when they shouldn’t. They are clones – because they just came from one cell, originally. But they are very damaging to the patient.

      If you tried to use a cell from a cancer to make a cloned human, it wouldn’t work – the cells would all just grow and grow and form a great blob of cells without much differentiation. A great blob wouldn’t be able to eat or function properly, so it wouldn’t survive. Probably a good thing.

      Clare’s answer is very interesting, too – but I suspect it’s exceptional…

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