Cancer Biology Flashcards
Exam revision
What are some types of mutations?
Types of mutation involving one of a few nucleotides:
These words are used to describe the effects on the reading code: frameshift (codon change), nonsense (introduces stop codon) and missense (changes in amino acid).
a) missense mutations = single amino acid change, may or may not affect protein function. May give partial or complete loss of activity
b) Nonsense mutations = Normal codon replaced by termination codon (TAA, TAG, TGA) to give a truncated protein. Occurs by single base substitution.
c) frameshift mutation = results in termination codon, occurs by insertion or deletion of one or two bases
What are the 6 hallmarks of cancer?
1) Sustained proliferative signalling/self-sufficiency in growth signals
2) Evading growth suppressors/insensitivity to anti-growth signals
3) Activating invasion and metastasis
4) Enabling replicative immortality
5) Inducing and sustaining angiogenesis
6) Evading apoptosis
What are the emerging (2) and enabling (2)?
Emerging = Avoiding immune destruction and abnormal metabolic pathways. Enabling = genomic instability and inflammation.
What type of genes are BRCA1 and BRCA2? Oncogenes or tumour suppressors?
Tumour suppressors