Oncogenes And Tumour Suppressor Genes Flashcards
What are the major functional changes in cancer?
Increased growth
Failure to undergo apoptosis or senescence
Loss of differentiation
Failure to repair DNA damage
How does increased growth happen in cancer?
Loss of regulation and stimulation of environment promoting growth
What do oncogenes cause?
Gain of function- making cells divide
What are oncogenes?
Altered gene whos product can act in a dominant fashion to help make a cell cancerous
What is the normal version of oncogenes?
Protoconcogenes
What do tumour supressor genes cause?
Loss of function- normal activity prevents cancer formation
What is Rous’s protocol for inducing sarcoma in chickens?
Remove sarcoma and break up into small tissue chunks
Grind up with sand
Filter and collect filtrate through a fine-pore filter
Inject filtrate into young chickens
Observe sarcoma in injected chickens
How is c-src captured by retrovirus?
The virus can acquire fragments of genes from the host at integration sites
What is the c-src oncogene product?
60 kDa intracellular tyrosine kinase
What can the C-Src oncogene do?
Phosphorylate cellular proteins and affect growth
What are the ways to become an active oncogene?
Mutation/deletion
Gene duplication/amplification
Translocation
What do gene duplications/amplifications do for oncogenes?
Increase synthesis of encoded proteins
What are the four types of protein involved in the growth signal transduction pathway?
Growth factors
Growth factor receptors
Intracellular signal transducers
Nuclear transcription factors
What do the majority of oncogene proteins function as?
Elements of the signalling pathways that regulate cell proliferation and surivival in response to growth factor stimulation
What do the majority of oncogene proteins function as?
Growth factors, growth backer receptors and intracellular signalling molecules
What were RAS oncogenes identified from?
Studies of two cancer causing cell lines
What are RAS oncogenes?
Small GTPases that are normally bound to GDP in a neutral state
What proportion of oncogenic activation of RAS is seen in human cancer?
30%
What codons are the mutations in on RAS oncogenes?
12, 13 and 61
What do the point mutations lead to in RAS oncogenes?
Loss of GTPase acting on the RAS protein that is normally used to inactivate the RAS GDP
How do the RAS oncogene intracellular signal transducers work?
Binding of extracellular growth factor signal
- > Promotes recruitment of RAS proteins to the receptor complex
- > recruitment promotes RAS to exchange GDP for GTP (activates RAS)
- > activated RAS then initiates the remainder of the signalling cascade (mitogen activated protein kinases)
- > kinases ultimately phosphorylate targets such as transcription factor to promote expression of genes important for growth and survival
What does the MYC oncogene family consist of?
C-MYC
MYCN
MYCL
Where was the MYC oncogene family originally identified?
In avian myelocytomatosis virus
What are MYC oncoproteins?
Transcription factors
How much of the genome do the MYC oncogenes transcribe?
15%
What are the major downstream effectors of MYC?
Those involved in: Ribosome biogenesis Protein translocation Cell cycle progression and metabolism Cell proliferation, differentiation, survival and immune surveillance