The role of heme in environmentally caused oncogenesis (review)

Abstract

The association of hemoblastoses, tumours of the central nervous system, with several other human neoplasms with various environmental factors of a chemical and physical nature has been previously established. Nonetheless, the mechanism of this relationship remains unclear. The author formulated the concept of environmentally determined oncogenesis with a key role of heme. According to the proposed model, the first stage of oncogenesis is the induction of environmentally determined oxidative stress, which is amplified by haem iron. Simultaneously, due to the ferromagnetic properties of heme iron reception, the induction and amplification of external electromagnetic fields occur with the formation of a feedback loop and additional stimulation of oxidative processes. Further, under the influence of active oxygen metabolites in target tissues with the greatest contact with heme, epigenomic dysregulation of semaphorin is developed. This leads to oncogenesis in actively proliferating cells of the axon growth cone, bone marrow, precursors of kidney cells, mesenchymal stem cells and endothelium. Consequently, benign tumours of the endothelium (hemangiomas), leukemias, lymphomas, tumours of the peripheral and central nervous system, as well as benign and malignant tumours of soft tissues occur. The proposed model illustrates the features of childhood oncology incidence with a predominance of hemangiomas among benign tumours, as well as hemoblastoses and tumours of the nervous system among cancers. In addition, the ability of heme to interact with electromagnetic fields advances our understanding of the relationship between neoplasms and solar activity.