![]() ![]() They found that white blood cells isolated from the blood of night shift participants showed more evidence of DNA damage than those of day shift participants. The researchers then looked at what the consequences of the changes in the expression of cancer-related genes might be. Notably, genes related to DNA repair that showed distinct rhythms in the day shift condition lost their rhythmicity in the night shift condition. Every three hours a blood sample was drawn.Īnalyses of white blood cells taken from the blood samples showed that the rhythms of many of the cancer-related genes were different in the night shift condition compared to the day shift condition. As part of the protocol, they were kept awake for 24 hours in a semi-reclined posture under constant light exposure and room temperature and were given identical snacks every hour. After completing their simulated shifts, all participants were kept in a constant routine protocol that is used to study humans' internally generated biological rhythms independent of any external influences. Half of them completed a three-day simulated night shift schedule, while the other half were on a three-day simulated day shift schedule. To test this, they conducted a simulated shift work experiment that had 14 participants spend seven days inside the sleep laboratory at WSU Health Sciences Spokane. The researchers hypothesized that the expression of genes associated with cancer might be rhythmic, too, and that night shift work might disrupt the rhythmicity of these genes. This cellular clock involves genes known as clock genes that are rhythmic in their expression, meaning their activity levels vary with the time of day or night. Though there is a central biological clock in the brain, nearly every cell in the body also has its own built-in clock. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Gaddameedhi and other WSU scientists worked with bioinformatics experts at PNNL to study the potential involvement of the biological clock, the body's built-in mechanism that keeps us on a 24-hour night and day cycle. Studying the rhythms in cancer-related genesĪs part of a partnership between the WSU Sleep and Performance Research Center and the U.S. "However, it has been unclear why night shift work elevates cancer risk, which our study sought to address." "There has been mounting evidence that cancer is more prevalent in night shift workers, which led the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify night shift work as a probable carcinogenic," said co-corresponding author Shobhan Gaddameedhi, an associate professor formerly with the WSU College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and now with North Carolina State University's Biological Sciences Department and Center for Human Health and the Environment. Though more research still needs to be done, these discoveries could someday be used to help prevent and treat cancer in night shift workers. Findings from the study suggest that night shifts disrupt natural 24-hour rhythms in the activity of certain cancer-related genes, making night shift workers more vulnerable to damage to their DNA while at the same time causing the body's DNA repair mechanisms to be mistimed to deal with that damage. Published online in the Journal of Pineal Research, the study involved a controlled laboratory experiment that used healthy volunteers who were on simulated night shift or day shift schedules. ![]()
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