PCL102H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Drug Discovery, Metastasis, Heritability
14 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
What is cancer: disease of uncontrolled growth. Includes spreading (malignant tumours) into normal tissues or to other parts of the body (metastatic cancer: normal growth control mechanisms dysregulated, normal cells receive signals to grow and stop. Can(cid:272)er (cid:272)ells either don"t ha(cid:448)e gro(cid:449) signals or stop signals. Mutations are common in cancers: mutations are differences in base pairs of dna, can lead to dysfunctional proteins. Cancer at the tissue level: starts as single cell and divides, malignant vs benign tumors. Benign are harmless cells that grow only locally and cannot spread. Malignant cells invade neighboring tissues, enter blood vessels, and metastasize. Cancer at the molecular level: to different sites: direct heritability of cancer is low, however cancer frequently involves genetic changes, hallmarks of cancer: Cancer cells have genes and accelerate cell growth. Can(cid:272)er (cid:272)ells don"t ha(cid:448)e re(cid:272)eptors to dete(cid:272)t outside signals growth driven by internal signaling. Cancer cells remove of inactivate tumor suppressor genes.
