3: Molecular basis of cancer part 1: changes in DNA underlie cancer

proteins. This video, the first in a series on the molecular basis of cancer, seeks to explain that changes in DNA, and more specifically genes, underlie cancer.

Cells in a single tumour originate from a single cell that has undergone malignant transformation. The changes occur in the formation of a mutation to the cells DNA.

Mutations cause permanent changes in genes - the sequences of DNA that provide a code for making proteins. Proteins are important because the proteins a cell makes determines what kind of cell it is and what it does (how it behaves).

Mutations cause permanent changes in the function of proteins produced. Because DNA is passed on from one cell to the next, these changes are inherited by the cell's progeny (the cells it produces when it divides).

This is why cancer is considered to be a genetic disease. It doesn't necessarily mean all cancers are inherited - rather that the damage that underlies cancer is, by and large, to genes.

The next video in the series will look at the specific abilities cells need to gain, through mutations, to become cancerous.

References
Kumar, V., & Robbins, S. L. 1. (2007). Robbins basic pathology (8th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Saunders/Elsevier