Cancer

Question 1

What is cancer?

Answer 1

Uncontrolled cellular proliferation

Question 2

What causes cancer?

Answer 2

Damage (mutations) to DNA

Question 3

What is a substance that can cause cancer?

Answer 3

Carcinogens

Question 4

What is a tumor?

Answer 4

A mass of cells

Question 5

What does it mean if a tumor is benign?

Answer 5

It is confined locally, easier to remove, and it doesn’t spread

Question 6

What does it mean when a tumor is malignant?

Answer 6

Invades surround tissue, spreads to other parts of the body, and often they come back

Question 7

What term is used to describe a spreading of cancer cells?

Answer 7

Metastasis

Question 8

What are the 2 types of genes that are most often associated with cancer?

Answer 8

• Oncogenes

- Tumor Supressors

Question 9

What is the name of a gene that, when mutated or overexpressed, can contribute to turning a normal cell into a cancer cell?

Answer 9

Proto-oncogene

Question 10

What type of genes are involved in growth and differentiation?

Answer 10

Oncogenes

Question 11

What are the 3 basic types of activation for oncogenes?

Answer 11

• Mutation which changes protein structure
• Increase in protein concentration
• Chromosomal translocation

Question 12

What is the function of mutation which changes protein structure (oncogenes)?

Answer 12

Increase activity or cause loss of regulation

Question 13

What is the function of the increase in protein concentration (oncogenes)?

Answer 13

Increase in expression, stability, or gene duplication

Question 14

What is the function of chromosomal translocation (oncogenes)?

Answer 14

Constitutively expressed fusion protein (Bcr-Abl), or expression in wrong cell, or expression at wrong time

Question 15

What is the term used to describe genes which have a repressive effect on the regulation of the cell cycle or promote apoptosis?

Answer 15

Tumor supressors

Question 16

What is the name of the hypothesis that tumor suppressors usually follow?

Answer 16

Two hit hypothesis

Question 17

What is the 2 hit hypothesis?

Answer 17

Both copies of the gene must be non-functional

Question 18

What am I describing?:

• Tumor suppressor
• regulates cell cycle
• mutated in ~50% of human cancers

Answer 18

p53 (the guardian of the genome)

Question 19

What is Li Fraumeni Syndrome?

Answer 19

Inherited mutations

Question 20

What is another name for p53?

Answer 20

The guardian genome

Question 21

What are the 10 hallmarks of cancer?

Answer 21

• 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

Question 22

What are the treatments (4) for cancer?

Answer 22

• Resection
• Chemotherapy
• Radiation
• Bone marrow transplants

Question 23

What type of therapies target specific pathways/proteins involved in tumor development?

Answer 23

Targeted therapies

Question 24

What type of therapy boosts immune system, attacks specific targets, and delivers chemo to cancer cells?

Answer 24

Immunotherapy

Question 25

What is the most common cancer in the US?

Answer 25

Skin cancer

Question 26

what is the most common cause of skin cancer?

Answer 26

Sunlight

Question 27

what is the #1 cause of lung cancer?

Answer 27

Smoking