Cancer Flashcards
What is cancer?
Uncontrolled cellular proliferation
What causes cancer?
Damage (mutations) to DNA
What is a substance that can cause cancer?
Carcinogens
What is a tumor?
A mass of cells
What does it mean if a tumor is benign?
It is confined locally, easier to remove, and it doesn’t spread
What does it mean when a tumor is malignant?
Invades surround tissue, spreads to other parts of the body, and often they come back
What term is used to describe a spreading of cancer cells?
Metastasis
What are the 2 types of genes that are most often associated with cancer?
- Oncogenes
- Tumor Supressors
What is the name of a gene that, when mutated or overexpressed, can contribute to turning a normal cell into a cancer cell?
Proto-oncogene
What type of genes are involved in growth and differentiation?
Oncogenes
What are the 3 basic types of activation for oncogenes?
- Mutation which changes protein structure
- Increase in protein concentration
- Chromosomal translocation
What is the function of mutation which changes protein structure (oncogenes)?
Increase activity or cause loss of regulation
What is the function of the increase in protein concentration (oncogenes)?
Increase in expression, stability, or gene duplication
What is the function of chromosomal translocation (oncogenes)?
Constitutively expressed fusion protein (Bcr-Abl), or expression in wrong cell, or expression at wrong time
What is the term used to describe genes which have a repressive effect on the regulation of the cell cycle or promote apoptosis?
Tumor supressors
What is the name of the hypothesis that tumor suppressors usually follow?
Two hit hypothesis
What is the 2 hit hypothesis?
Both copies of the gene must be non-functional
What am I describing?:
- Tumor suppressor
- regulates cell cycle
- mutated in ~50% of human cancers
p53 (the guardian of the genome)
What is Li Fraumeni Syndrome?
Inherited mutations
What is another name for p53?
The guardian genome
What are the 10 hallmarks of cancer?
- Uncontrolled proliferation
- Evasion of growth suppressors
- Resistance to apoptosis
- Develop replicator immortality
- Induce angiogenesis
- Invasion and Metastasis
- Changed energy metabolism
- Immune system evasion
- Genomic instability
- Inflammation
What are the treatments (4) for cancer?
- Resection
- Chemotherapy
- Radiation
- Bone marrow transplants
What type of therapies target specific pathways/proteins involved in tumor development?
Targeted therapies
What type of therapy boosts immune system, attacks specific targets, and delivers chemo to cancer cells?
Immunotherapy
