Cancer traits 1 Flashcards
Cancer is a disease of what?
genome
What do carcinogens do?
produce mutations
What do mutations in somatic cells cause?
transformation and carcinogenesis
What is initiation
initiation of cancer development is clonal
- mutation in one specific cell will give a rise to whole tumour
What is carcinogenesis?
normal cells transformed into cancerous cells
What is the process of tumour cells
continue accumulating mutations, can evolve -> sub-clonal selection offers growth advantage and explains cell heterogeneity in tumours
- cells get different mutations
mutations in germ cells can be inherited increasing cancer risk but rarely causing it immediately
What are the names if cells in processing to malignant tumour?
normal cell (initiation occurs)->initiated cell (promotion occurs)-> preneoplastic cell (progression occurs) -> neoplastic cell (metastasis occurs)-> malignant tumour
What is an abnormal cell cycle?
unreplicated, mutated or damaged DNA, blocks progression of cell cycle at checkpoints
What is the process of abnormal cell cycle?
initial mutation inactivates a negative cell cycle regulator -> next mutation over activates a positive cell cycle regulator -> third mutation inactivates a genome stability factor->additional mutations accumulate rapidly->cancer cell
What is the difference between a normal cell and a cancer cell during DNA damage?
normal cell will lead to apoptosis whereas cancer cell will continue dividing
What is missense mutation?
change of single DNA base resulting in change in amino acid sequence & change of protein function
What is frameshift mutation
addition or removal of DNA bases shift DNA & amino acid sequence; results in different protein
what is nonsense mutation
change of single DNA base creates stop codon that terminates translation; results in shorter protein with no or abnormal function
what are chromosome rearrangements?
piece of chromosome breaks & is lost entirely (deletion), moves to different location (translocation), flips direction (inversion), or is repeated (duplication)
Can alter several genes at once, generating fusion genes
What is proto-oncogenes
normal cellular genes which regulate cell growth &/or division & differentiation