© 1985 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
Carcinoma is to Embryology as Mutation is to Genetics1
Department of Pathology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center Denver, Colorado 80262
Experiments are reviewed that indicate embryonic fields are capable of regulating the neoplastic attributes of their closely related carcinomas. In the case of blastocyst regulation of embryonal carcinoma cells the reaction is mediated by contact of the cancer cells with trophectodermal cells in the presence of blastocele fluid. In the case of regulation of melanoma, the reaction is mediated in the embryonic skin at the time normal melanocytes migrate into it. A diffusible factor that inhibits cell division and seems to affect differentiation is involved. In the case of neuroblastoma, a degree of regulation is demonstrable in the neural crest migratory pathway, but the maximal effect is found in the adrenal, renal, and testicular primordia. A factor inhibitory of mitosis for adenocarcinoma of the breast can be demonstrated in the breast primordium. It is concluded that there must be an embryonic field capable of regulating every kind of carcinoma: understanding of the phenomena may lead to a noncytotoxic cure for carcinoma, and through the use of cancer cells as probes of embryonic development to an understanding of embryonic induction.