PCL102H1 Lecture 4: Understanding Disease Mechanisms
7 Mar 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
What is cancer: disease of uncontrolled growth. Includes spreading into normal tissues and to other parts of the body by breaking through the basement membrane of normal cells (metastatic cancer: normal growth control mechanisms dysregulated. It is a group of over 100 different diseases. Growth in normal cell vs. lost cancer cell. How do we organize cancers: tissue/organ of origin (breast cancer, brain cancer, me(cid:272)ha(cid:374)is(cid:373) of gro(cid:449)th dysregulatio(cid:374) (cid:862)dri(cid:448)er(cid:863) (cid:894)(cid:449)hi(cid:272)h path(cid:449)ays ha(cid:448)e lost (cid:272)o(cid:374)trol? (cid:895) How did the control mechanisms get dysregulated: mutations are common in cancers these mutations are differences in base pairs of dna which can lead to dysfunctional proteins, mistakes in genetic information can occur. Cancer at the tissue level: cancer cells invade surrounding tissues and blood vessels, cancer cells are transported by the circulatory system to distant sites, cancer cells reinvade and grow at new location. Cancer at the molecular level: direct heritability of cancer is low, cancer frequently involves genetic changes.
