FTM 68 - Role of Apoptosis in Cancer Flashcards
List the morphological steps to apoptosis
List the three main components to the apoptotic pathway and their functions.
Briefly discuss caspase activation
What are the stimuli that will initiate apoptosis?
List the steps of the intrinsic pathway of apoptosis.
List the steps of the extrinsic pathway of apoptosis
Describe how the intrinsic and extrinsic apoptotic pathways can overlap.
- The extrinsic pathway can also act through mitochondra due to the action of the BID protein (a member of the intrinsic pathway) which is activated by caspase 8 (a member of the extrinsic pathway)
When is the Perforin/Granzyme pathway activated and what are its steps?
What are the primary targets of caspases?
Describe how an extracellular signal can inhibit apoptosis
How can p53 influence apoptosis?
How can DNA electrophoresis be used to determine if a cell is undergoing apoptosis?
Caspases activate a DNAse enzyme that cleaves DNA at the exposed sites between nucleosomes. This creates DNA fragments in lengths of multiples of 180 bps. If this DNA is ran on a gel it will have a characteristic ladder appearance
What is TUNEL and how is it used to see apoptosis?
Terminal transferase dUTP Nick End Labeling
This methodology involves enzymatically labeling the ends of DNA. Apoptotic genomes have many free ends compared to non-apoptotic genomes allowing cells undergoing apoptosis to be visually detected in situ.
How can antibodies be used to detect cells undergoing apoptosis?
It is commonly observed that cancer cells express high levels of _________________ proteins and low levels of ______________ proteins.
Anti-apoptotic proteins like Bcl-2
Pro-apoptotic proteins lik p53
What are the four genes implicated in Alzheimer’s Disease?
Facts to know about apoptosis and AD
Facts to know about HIV-1/AIDS and Apoptosis
Why is aberrant programmed cell death a bad thing?
