[ONCOL320] - Final Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam (127 pages long!)

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Oncology
• Course: ONCOL320
• Professor: Mary Hitt

Document Summary

Epidemiological and experimental evidence implicate cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer. 35-year lag between rise in cigarette consumption and rise in lung cancer. Baby hamster kidney cells exposed to gene transfection myc/e1a and ras. No foci when either gene introduced alone (cells changed but did not form foci) Simultaneous introduction of both genes formed foci of transformed cells. A defence mechanism set up within our cells - must have multiple gene mutations to transform cells. Primary (taken directly from the organism with minimal in vitro manipulation) rodent cells as targets in vitro: Transgenic mice with mutant ras expressed in colonic epithelia --> hyperplasia (cells that proliferate at a high level), but not tumours. Individuals with germline mutations in kit, gfr, or h-ras genes - tumours take decades to develop. Must have other things that go wrong before malignancy occurs. Transformation of primary rodent cells usually requires 2 mutant genes bcl-2 + myc.