Скачать или смотреть 4.1 Cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell proliferation

Cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell proliferation

Cancer and normal cells utilize control circuitry that is almost identical
Cancer cells tweak existing controls
A simplified linear signalling pathway
Growth factors and receptors
Receptors displayed at the cell surface gather a wide variety of signals and funnel them into the cytoplasm

Many of the outputs of this sign processing circuitry are then transmitted to the nucleus
How does signaling occur? A single cell may express 20,000 or more distinct proteins
form a thick soup

Proteins must communicate with great specificity and precision.
a signaling protein operating in a linear cascade only recognises the intended upstream and downstream partners

Signaling circuit must solve two problems
Specificity:
How can these interact only with a small subset of cellular proteins
Speed:
How can this protein acquire instantaneous access to these signaling partners

see the Molecular Art of David Goodsell

Another way to think about cancer?
Cancer is really a disease of an aberrant signal processing…
Oncoproteins and tumor suppressors create cancer through their ability to generate signaling imbalances