Cancer

47 Cancer





Questions



image What is the difference between an oncogene and a proto-oncogene?

image In what ways do oncogenes lead to tumourigenesis?

image Why do cells become cancerous?

A cancer is an uncontrolled growth and division of cells that have escaped the normal regulatory mechanisms of the cell cycle. Cancerous or tumour or neoplastic cells are said to be transformed. Transformed cells characteristically continue to divide under conditions in which normal cells would become quiescent (i.e. with contact inhibition or when nutrients or growth factors are depleted from the medium). A cancer is said to be benign when the growth is localized to the site of origin within a tissue, with no invasion, and malignant when the tumour cells can invade into the surrounding tissue and vasculature, spread to distant sites and grow there forming secondary tumours (metastasis).



Tumourigenesis: the somatic cell theory of cancer


Cancers arise because of mutations in the genome of somatic cells as a result of inaccuracies in gene replication or chromosomal rearrangement at mitosis (Fig. 3.47.1

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Jun 18, 2016 | Posted by in BIOCHEMISTRY | Comments Off on Cancer

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