Unit III Flashcards
(125 cards)
Anchorage Independence
The ability to grow without attachment to solid substrate.
A property of cancer cells.
Five different properties of malignant cancer cells
- Anchorage Independence
- Immortalization - can proliferate indefinitely
- Loss of contact inhibition - ability to grow over one another
- Insensitivity to anti-growth signals
- Tissue invasion and metastasis
Multi-step process for cancer
- Noraml cell
- Inreased proliferation
- Early/ progressive neoplasia
- Carcinoma - tumor developed
- Metastatsis - spreading through the circulatory system
- Turn on oncogene
- Turn off tumor suppressor (both cell cycle regulatory and DNA repair genes).
- Turn off apoptotic genes
What types of genes are usually mutated in tumor initiation?
Oncogenes and Tumor Suppressors
Familial Rb is more prone to what type of tumor?
Bilateral
Sporadic Rb is prone to what type of tumor?
Unilateral.
It’s much more unlikely to have the same two sporadic muations in both eyes.
Rb within the cell cycle
is an inhibitor of cells moving from the G1 to S phase
Inhibitor of Rb?
Cyclin D and E which phosphorylate Rb
How does loss of heterozygosity occur?
- Mutation
- Mitotic recombination
- Chromosome loss
- and/or environmental factors
Explain the Knudson Theory
If you’re heterozygous, you have one strike against you through your genes ( one copy of suppressor gene knocked out in your parents’ passed on DNA). If you have another “strike” (such as UV exposure causing an unrepaired mutation in the other copy), you’re unable to produce that tumor suppressor gene at all - leads to cancer.
Ways to inactivate tumor suppressor
Translocations
Loss of heterozygosity - RB
Examples of dominant inherited cancer
Familial Retinoblastoma (RB) Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP-APC gene) Familial Breat and Ovarian Cancer (BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes) Wilms tumor
Examples of Recessive inherited cancer
Xeroderma Pigmentosa (XP genes)
Aataxia-Telangiectasia (AT gene)
Bloom’s syndrome
Fanconi’s Congenital aplastic anemia (FA genes)
Describe the inheritance pattern of Rb
It is an autosomal dominant disorder (consistent when drawing a family pedigree) however, it is a RECESSIVE disorder in which loss of heterozygosity and removal of both Rb genes in a cell leads to uncheck proliferation of cells
Is Rb an oncogene or tumor suppressor?
tumor suppressor (anti-oncogene)
Function APC gene
encodes a cytoplasmic protein that keeps beta-catenin outside the nucleus; without APC, beta-catenin goes into the nucleus and beings uncontrolled transcription of oncogenes like c-myc.
Function of the BRCA 1 gene
Breast Cancer Gene 1: encodes scaffold protein that checks the cell cycel to make sure that DNA has replicated correctly. When this gene is mutated, this surveillance on the cell cycle is removed.
What type of gene is BRCA1 and 2?
tumor suppressor
What type of gene is p53
Originally thought to be an oncogene because a p53 mutation was dominant to the wild type gene in producing cellular transformation. Now we know that the p53 mutation produces a mutant PROTEIN that binds to the wild type p53 to inactivate it - CLASSIC TUMOR SUPPRESSOR.
What gene is referred to as “spoiler” or “monkey wrench”?
p53
Why is p53 considered the “guardian of the genome”?
- Acts as a transcription factor which prevents cells from replicating damaged or foreign DNA
- It is required for cell apoptosis, cells with damaged DNA commit suicide
- Interferes with the life cycle of human viruses including Adenovirus and HPV
What genes does HPV try to inactivate?
Rb and p53
What are the three genes found in a viral RNA?
- gag gene
- env gene
- poly gene
Function the gag gene?
Found in viral RNA
codes for internal virion protein