Cell and Molecular Biology of Cancer
Some concepts
Tumour – abnormal growth of tissue
Benign – does not invade adjacent tissues
Malignant – cancer, invades surrounding tissues and spreads to other parts of the
body
Cancer is due to genetic mutations
Overview of carcinogenesis
Radiation, chemicals, infectious agents and hereditary genes can affect the DNA
Not all mutations lead to cancer
Some create genetic instability
Specific parts of the DNA must be targeted
Must be a proliferating cell
When a cell has turned malignant they have specific features
The hallmarks of cancer
Self-sufficiency in growth signals
Insensitivity to antigrowth signals
Evasion of apoptosis
Replicative immortality
Sustained angiogenesis
Reprogramming of energy metabolism
Evasion of immune destruction
All are underlain my instability and inflammation
The cell cycle
Critical regulators of the cell cycle
Unregulated cell proliferation
Can be defined as an ordered series of events that leads to division
When growth is finished cell divisions are needed to replace cells that die
Challenges:
o Replicating the genetic information with high fidelity
o Distributing chromosomes equally between daughter cells
Phases of the cell cycle
Mitosis – very short period
G1 – Increase in cell condensed organelles
S – replication of DNA occurs
G2 – cell prepares for the division process
These three phases (G1, S, G2) are called interface
Cells not going through cell cycle are G0 (arrested)
How fast do cells divide?
Depends on the type of cell
Cancer cells escape control of cell division
What controls the cell cycle?
Make sure processes happen in the right order – regulated complexes and
regulators, complexes signal stage of cycle
o M-CDK Complex – riggers mitosis
o S-CDK complex – initiates DNA replication
o Complexes are named according to the phase
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