I would expect that for full regrowth, all or at least most of the cells would have to have the right conditions (p21 -/-, perhaps). So the entire regrown tissue would likely be at a high risk for tumors.
The wikipedia entry for p21 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P21) is somewhat misleading about its relationship with cancer.
For a good review, see:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=1919868&jid=ERM&volumeId=10&issueId=-1&aid=1919860
Excerpt:
"However, p21-null mice were found to
be more susceptible to chemically induced
tumours of the skin (Ref. 94) and colon
(Ref. 95), and following irradiation they
displayed increased tumourigenesis and
metastases (Ref. 96). In addition, using different
mouse strains, others have found that p21-null
mice exhibit spontaneous tumour formation in
the background of other genetic knockouts,
such as Muc22/2 (lacking mucin 2) (Ref. 97)
and Apc1638/2 (carrying a mutant allele of the
adenomatosis polyposis coli gene) (Ref. 98).
Furthermore, subsequent to the initial
description of p21-null mice, investigators have
found that p21-null mice bred on a 129Sv/
C57BL6 50:50 background did in fact develop
spontaneous tumours at an average age of 16
months (Ref. 99). Collectively, these mouse
studies demonstrated the importance of p21 in
mediating the G1 checkpoint, and its ability to
function as a tumour suppressor."
If the exogenous antibodies end up hitting the wrong cells in some people, there could be major problems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmunity
Although I would expect that there would be some sort of pre-compatibility test to avoid major complications - but you can't realistically pre-test every cell type via biopsy.
I'd say there's an extreme bias in our current understanding of viruses because we only know about the ones that are blooming (lytic phase) during acute disease symptoms. We know very little about viruses that don't cause disease, or the viruses hiding around in latent form (say, non-blooming herpes) because there's no easy way to find them (even when we know their genomic sequence and have antibodies to tag their coats).
Yes - change "homosexual sex" to "non-procreative sex" and it's less controversial. What about just the human behavior of kissing? Perhaps it's a way of smelling each other's breath to check for disease signals, or sharing of pheromones, but I'm more inclined to think it's about virus transfer. I'd also presume that breast feeding might provide lateral transfer of beneficial genes via viruses that haven't "gone germline" yet. Viruses can also pass through the placenta to a fetus, and viruses can pass the blood-brain-barrier.
It's possible that a beneficial virus could get passed around that actually changes human thought/behavior. A rabies infection makes a person hydrophobic, but rabies isn't exactly beneficial (except maybe to bats).
Even more wacky - what if human rational consciousness is a function of one or many viruses that get transferred to embryos/fetuses/developing children? Perhaps over time some of those viruses have "gone germline" and are now HERVs. In that case God would not only be a viral meme, but also a molecular virus (or series of 'em) himself.
Don't forget R/Bioconductor! Not only is R free/free, but there are thousands of available Bioconductor packages ready for out-of-the-box use.
Also consider Cytoscape and or EGAN for graph visualization of established and experimental bio-knowledge.
http://www.bioconductor.org/http://www.cytoscape.org/http://akt.ucsf.edu/EGAN/
(full disclosure - I work on EGAN)
Slashdot Mirror
I would expect that for full regrowth, all or at least most of the cells would have to have the right conditions (p21 -/-, perhaps). So the entire regrown tissue would likely be at a high risk for tumors.
The wikipedia entry for p21 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P21) is somewhat misleading about its relationship with cancer. For a good review, see: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=1&fid=1919868&jid=ERM&volumeId=10&issueId=-1&aid=1919860 Excerpt: "However, p21-null mice were found to be more susceptible to chemically induced tumours of the skin (Ref. 94) and colon (Ref. 95), and following irradiation they displayed increased tumourigenesis and metastases (Ref. 96). In addition, using different mouse strains, others have found that p21-null mice exhibit spontaneous tumour formation in the background of other genetic knockouts, such as Muc22/2 (lacking mucin 2) (Ref. 97) and Apc1638/2 (carrying a mutant allele of the adenomatosis polyposis coli gene) (Ref. 98). Furthermore, subsequent to the initial description of p21-null mice, investigators have found that p21-null mice bred on a 129Sv/ C57BL6 50:50 background did in fact develop spontaneous tumours at an average age of 16 months (Ref. 99). Collectively, these mouse studies demonstrated the importance of p21 in mediating the G1 checkpoint, and its ability to function as a tumour suppressor."
If the exogenous antibodies end up hitting the wrong cells in some people, there could be major problems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoimmunity Although I would expect that there would be some sort of pre-compatibility test to avoid major complications - but you can't realistically pre-test every cell type via biopsy.
I'd say there's an extreme bias in our current understanding of viruses because we only know about the ones that are blooming (lytic phase) during acute disease symptoms. We know very little about viruses that don't cause disease, or the viruses hiding around in latent form (say, non-blooming herpes) because there's no easy way to find them (even when we know their genomic sequence and have antibodies to tag their coats).
and some of the best have been integrated into our genome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus
Yes - change "homosexual sex" to "non-procreative sex" and it's less controversial. What about just the human behavior of kissing? Perhaps it's a way of smelling each other's breath to check for disease signals, or sharing of pheromones, but I'm more inclined to think it's about virus transfer. I'd also presume that breast feeding might provide lateral transfer of beneficial genes via viruses that haven't "gone germline" yet. Viruses can also pass through the placenta to a fetus, and viruses can pass the blood-brain-barrier. It's possible that a beneficial virus could get passed around that actually changes human thought/behavior. A rabies infection makes a person hydrophobic, but rabies isn't exactly beneficial (except maybe to bats). Even more wacky - what if human rational consciousness is a function of one or many viruses that get transferred to embryos/fetuses/developing children? Perhaps over time some of those viruses have "gone germline" and are now HERVs. In that case God would not only be a viral meme, but also a molecular virus (or series of 'em) himself.
more data warehouses: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
a few more favorite things: http://genome.ucsc.edu/ http://www.biomart.org/ http://www.taverna.org.uk/
Don't forget R/Bioconductor! Not only is R free/free, but there are thousands of available Bioconductor packages ready for out-of-the-box use. Also consider Cytoscape and or EGAN for graph visualization of established and experimental bio-knowledge. http://www.bioconductor.org/ http://www.cytoscape.org/ http://akt.ucsf.edu/EGAN/ (full disclosure - I work on EGAN)