Cancer Tutorial

Problem 1: Colon Cancer

In colon cancers, normal cells first proliferate to form intestinal polyps (nodules) and ultimately progress to metastatic carcinoma. Each step in the progression is accompanied by changes in either oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. These results are interpreted to mean:

	tumor suppressor genes alone are sufficient for the conversion to a cancer cell.
	a series of changes in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes explain progression of normal to metastatic cancer cells.
	oncogene-like genes coding for genetic diseases can easily form mutations
	all tumor suppressor genes are directly inactivated by oncogenes