Hardly the “happiness hormone”, right? I am posting this just as a placeholder since the article is from the popular press, but it does have an interesting reference to a study that 5-HT has a direct genomic effect by silencing\/activating genes. Some of the genes 5-HT activates are already well-known “oncogenes” – i.e. they help drive certain cancers, such as brain, liver and pancreatic ones. I would go a step further and state that given 5-HT’s effects as a potent metabolic inhibitor and reductant, that amine probably plays a direct causal role in all cancers.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-019-1024-7<\/a><\/p>\n https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/serotonin-could-play-an-unexpected-role-in-cancer-scientists-discover<\/a><\/p>\n “…In 2019, scientists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York\u00a0discovered<\/a> that serotonin can enter cells and interact directly with DNA. They found that it binds to molecular “switches” that control whether genes are active or inactive<\/strong><\/span> \u2013 and this binding can turn specific genes on. Studies since then have shown that serotonin<\/span> can switch on genes involved in cancer growth. This mechanism has been seen in brain, liver, and pancreatic cancers<\/span> \u2013 and it may play a role in many other types of cancer<\/strong><\/span>. My colleagues and I at the University of Limerick in Ireland are currently investigating<\/a> the interaction between serotonin and DNA to better understand how it influences cancer. Identifying the specific sites where serotonin binds to cancer-related genes could support the development of targeted “epigenetic” therapies \u2013 treatments that control which genes are switched on or off.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hardly the “happiness hormone”, right? I am posting this just as a placeholder since the article is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[192,55,216,302,363,609,47],"class_list":["post-2913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-5-ht","tag-cancer","tag-epigenetic","tag-gene","tag-genome","tag-methylation","tag-serotonin","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2914,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions\/2914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}