Cancer can also occur when
certain normal genes (tumor suppressor genes, for example) are «switched on or off» as a result of environmental epigenetics — influences that occur throughout your life.
Not exact matches
Recent work has also shown that over - or underexpression of
certain genes in Arabidopsis plants can prompt embryogenesis in otherwise
normal - looking leaf cells.
Normal plants raise and lower their leaves once every 24 hours, and they switch on
certain genes to a similar drumbeat.
The new research finds that the stiffness of the extracellular matrix and the availability of
certain ligands (molecules that bind to cell membranes) can together determine which
genes are actually called on — and whether
normal epithelial cells begin to exhibit the behaviors characteristic of highly malignant cancer cells.
The molecules are critical to
normal development: When the
genes for
certain of these molecules are experimentally erased, the eggs made by female mice are invariably defective, and the errors fatally disrupt the
normal choreography of egg maturation.
This DNA becomes damaged in the course of
normal cellular processes, and
certain forms of mitochondrial DNA damage - to the thirteen
genes needed for oxidative phosphorylation - produce malfunctioning mitochondria that can overtake their cells, either by replicating more readily or being more resistant to quality control mechanisms.