IS CHROMOSOMAL INVOLVEMENT OBLIGATORY TO CANCER ?

This paper based on newly designed "Double control Allium sativum test" explicitly demonstrates that the phenomenon of carcinogenesis essentially involves typical chromosomal aberrations. The experiment also contradicts earlier observations that urethane, a potential carcinogen, cannot influence chromosomes in plant cells to exhibit aberrations. Obviously, the present approach strengthens the concept of chromosomal involvement in cancer. All those specific aberrations like somatic translocations, hypo and hyper counts, dicentric chromosomes and more categorically, the appearance of "new chromosomes" have been observed in repeated trials in root meristems of Allium sativum (garlic). Controls were suitably maintained and examined for each repeat and at every stage of the experiment.

In addition to this, the paper presents a new category of translocation hitherto unknown, in which an arm of a chromosome is translocated to a chromatid of another chromosome, thus resulting in an imbalanced chromosomal configuration.