MICROBIO 160 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor, Progeria, Integrin

• School: UMASS-Amherst
• Department: Microbiology
• Course: MICROBIO 160
• Professor: Mitchell Walkowicz

Document Summary

Biology of cancer and aids 9/23/15: profile of a cancer cell. To be cancer, it learns to get around the checkpoints (get rid of quality control) Possible causes of cancer: exposure to radiation, exposure to toxins, hormonal abnormalities, inherited abnormalities, nutrition and diet. Tobacco use (sticks to your dna, can cause mutation) Introducing cancer by transfection: human cancer extract dna apply dna to culture of normal mouse fibroblasts (immune system cells) cells are transformed inject transformed cells into mouse causes tumor. Hallmarks of cancer cells (p. 195-197 in textbook) Cancer cells exhibit a decreased dependence on external growth factors (e. g. skin is contact inhibited so it"s smooth) Cancer cell proliferation is anchorage independent (when it lifts off primary site it doesn"t usually die) Cancer cells have limitless replicative potential (normal cells will die within hours of being removed from body) Stimulates sustained angiogenesis (tumor uses trick to get blood vessels to grow towards it)