Cancer treatment / Review of the problem / Distinguishing Features
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES
- cancer alters DNA, but may be either a genetic or epigenetic disease
- characterized (usually) by rapid cell growth
- caused by upregulation of oncogenes or downregulation of tumour suppressor genes, particularly modification or deletion of p53, a key cell cycle regulator (responsible for ~50% of human cancers)
- in solid tumours, angiogenesis is required to supply blood to the growing tissue
- derived from normal tissue (i.e., cancer cells are not recognized by the immune system as foreign), but may express different proteins (or different amounts of a protein) compared to normal cells
- loss of differentiation (reverting to more developmental forms)
- cancer stem cells (colony forming ability) à metastasis to other tissues