IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF NOVEL MOLECULER MARKERS IN CENCER PREVALENT AMONGINDIAN PATIENTS

Abstract

Introduction to cancer

A normal mammalian cell grows and divides giving rise to progeny of its own kind. With the passage of time, older and damaged cells die, only to be replaced with new cells, a process that maintains tissue homeostasis (Figure 1). Cancer develops when this normal, highly regulated physiological process is disrupted. Renegade cells acquire the ability to grow and divide rapidly and bypass programmed death, thus accumulating more and more genetic and physiological anomalies with each cell division. Eventually, this abnormal cellular proliferation results in a mass of tissue called the tumor. Major advances in recent years have led to a detailed understanding of the pathophysiology of cancer where it is no longer considered to be a single malady but a pathological condition that encompasses a group of diseases exhibiting uncontrolled cell growth and division as a common feature.

Hallmarks of cancer

Transformation of a cell from normal to malignant form involves a series of molecular and physiological alterations that accumulate over time. Regulation of cell division (mitosis) is carried out by two main groups of molecules. One class – the activators, provide signals for stimulating cell growth and division, while the other, the suppressors, inhibit it. Some of these proteins trigger a separate signal for detecting damaged cells, allowing the aberrant cell to enter programmed cell death (apoptosis). A finely controlled balance between proliferative and inhibitory signals is therefore critical to maintain tissue homeostasis. Mutations or other changes in the activator/suppressor classes of genes disrupts this leading to the transformation of healthy cells into malignant ones. Cancer cells have evolved mechanisms that allow then to become unresponse to the signals that control cellular division like the way normal cells do. Since cancer cells divide uncontrollably, they rapidly build up and grow into tumors.