Week 2 - Cancer Genome Flashcards
What did Theodor Boveri propose about the origins of a cancerous tumour?
‘A cancerous tumour was a cell with scrambled chromosomes’
What are the 2 reasons to study cancer genomes?
- Increase knowledge of the biology of cancer
2. Clinical Application
Give at least 4 types of genomic change in cancer.
Aneuploidy Translocation Point mutation Inversion Epigenetic Telomeres Copy number alteration
What is the difference between ‘passenger’ and ‘driver’ mutations?
Passenger - does not contribute to cancer development
Driver - Causally implicated in carcinogenesis
How are driver mutations grouped in their identification?
They are a small proportion of mutations present in many tumours.
What are the two main ways that tumourigenesis can occur?
- Loss of a tumour supressor gene.
2. Amplification of an oncogene.
What is the definition of Aneuploidy?
Deviation form normal number of chromosomes
Common in cancer and are as a result of defects in chromosome segregration in cell division
What is Crizotinib the treatment for?
Non small cell lung cancer caused by EML4-ALK gene fusion.
How is the EML4-ALK fusion gene caused?
An inversion at chromosome 2.
What is the definition of ‘Epigenetic Changes’?
(Heritable) chemical modifications to the genome or its scaffold that do not involve changes in nucleotide sequence
What is the role of Telomeres?
Repetitive Sequences at chromosome ends that protect the chromsome.
What are the 3 main Histone Modification?
Acetylation
Methylation
Phosphorylation
What is the role of Histone Modifications?
They contribute to the control of gene expression via chromatin compaction.
Histone modification is a target for therapy, give an example of a drug and a condition which it treats.
Vorinostat
Romidepsin
In T-cell lymphoma
What enzyme facilitates DNA Methylation?
DNA Methyltransferase
