With slight changes in the switch,' you can get a tremendous step up in a body's sensitivity to cancer agents. Turning the system up or down might have value, says Yamamoto. By turning down an organism's ability to squelch carcinogens, you could get an exquisitely sensitive model for testing, say, which pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay cause tumors to form. Likewise, you could turn it up and, in theory, increase any animal's resistance to cancer or, perhaps, other diseases. The researchers believe the system is a common, general one in many animals.
Toxicity plays a role in many conditions such as atherosclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases.
The studies were funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and by gifts from the Lewis and Dorothy Cullman Foundation, New York.