BIOL3190 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Somatic Cell, Malignancy, Dna Replication
Document Summary
Adults keep self-renewing stem cells that are capable of differentiating into different lineages- important for cell renewal. Somatic cell nucleus transfer: enucleated eggs which receive adult nucleus, nucleus is reprogrammed in egg changing transcription patterns. Induced pluripotent stem cells- adult cells are reprogramed into stem cells. Cancer takes a long time to develop. Almost all tumors arise in adult tissues. If more cells are born than die- tumor forms: benign- still contained within tissue boundaries, malignant- break through tissue boundary, secrete protease, metastatic- move to a new site in the body. Transition to cancer depends on one or more driver mutations: cells usually also have additional passenger mutations. Recent statistical analysis suggests that errors in dna replication in stem cells may account for the majority of the risk. Incidence of cancer is well correlated with stem cell division that occurs over a lifetime in adult tissue. Each tumor has a unique set of mutations.
