Cellular Structure, Function, And Organization

Cancer, medically called ‘tumorigenesis’ (Thaker, Lutgendorf, & Sood, 2007, p.430) occurs when cells in the body orient themselves for malignant growth. Such cells show ‘self-sufficiency in growth signals’, are ‘insensitive to anti-growth signals’ and have ‘limitless replicative potential’ (Thaker, Lutgendorf, & Sood, 2007, p.430). Once a particular set of cells become malignant, the malignancy can spread to other set of cells in different organs due to ‘crosstalk’ between the affected cells and their surrounding ‘tissues’ and ‘micro-environments’(Thaker, Lutgendorf, & Sood, 2007, p.430).

Over the past decade breast cancer has become one of the most predominant diseases in the United States. Breast cancer starts out as a malignant tumor in the tissues of the breast which is formed from the uncontrolled growth of abnormal breast cells. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, but it can also appear in men. (Stephan, 2010)

Many doctors, physicians, researchers and biotech companies--including the revolutionary Seattle Genetics research facility--are now turning to antibody-assisted cancer treatments and precisely targeted cures instead of treating cancer with a cocktail of chemicals and radiation that generate risky side effects and damage the healthy tissue that patients need to recover. Cancers are among the most frightening and difficult-to-treat illnesses. Ranked as the leading cause of death and disability, cancer is actually an umbrella term that covers many different diseases. Each person faces a unique disease because cancers interact with the body's existing cells, so each case has a

An ordinary human body contains approximately one trillion cells and precisely 46 chromosomes in each cell. However, the human body can be altered by a genetic mutation. Over the course of history, genetic mutations have had a large impact on the human race. They have brought harm to numerous amounts of people. Cancer, in particular, is one of the most lethal diseases. Cancer begins when a portion of DNA inside a chromosome is damaged, causing a cell to mutate. Then, the mutated cell reproduces multiple times and creates a tumor. Afterwards, cancer cells break off of the tumor, enter the bloodstream, and disperse throughout the body. If the cells break off, the tumor is considered malignant - this type of cancer is very difficult to cure.

Cancer is listed as the second most common cause of death in western countries; particularly, in adults. Though it has a long antiquity, its prevalence and incidence today is pervasive and the war on cancer has not been promising. Malignant neoplasia is characterized by uncontrolled growth and the ability to metastasize or spread from the original site. Cancer results from mutations that promote cell proliferation and inhibit cell adhesion (metastasis). According to the National Cancer Institute (2016), “Cancer can also spread regionally,

First, we must understand what cancer is and how it forms, cancer is “a malignant and invasive growth or tumor, especially one originating in epithelium, tending to recur after excision and to metastasize to other sites.”1 it is when normal cells mutate and begin to reproduce at such an accelerated rate that body does not have time to get rid of these bad cells and a mass begins to grow creating a problem for the body.

Common features among all types of cancer are metastasis, redirecting blood flow, unregulated cell proliferation, genomic instability and hiding from the immune system. The most dangerous aspect of cancer is that the disease can turn metastatic. 90% of cancer deaths come from metastasis (13). Metastasis is when somatic cells of the body have mutations in the genes that control cell placement. For example, if someone develops lung cancer, several cells in the tumor may leave the lung because the regulatory proteins that keep cells in place are no longer being made. This cluster of cells can travel to any part of the body and start to make tumors there. This is why someone can have lung cancer, but have tumors in their brain. In addition, tumors redirect blood flow so the cancerous cell population can stay alive. Furthermore, unregulated cell proliferation is when cancer cells divide despite signals to stop, and this is what causes tumors. Additionally, genomic instability is when your genes are in the wrong order in your genome. Your genome is all of your genes put together. If you think of a gene as an instruction to build a car part, the genome is the instruction manual to build the car. In cancer, cells have faulty instructions for cell

Cancer in the ovaries spreads quickly to other parts of the body and “is the most lethal gynecological malignancy, with an alarmingly poor prognosis attributed to late detection and chemoresistance (Brachova).” The ovaries are composed of three different types of tissue: epithelia, germ, and stromal, with tumors being named for the kinds of cells the tumor started from and whether the tumor is benign or cancerous. The American Cancer Society’s estimates for ovarian cancer in the United States in 2014 are about 21,980 new cases and about 14,270 deaths. A woman’s risk of getting invasive ovarian cancer in her lifetime is about 1 in 72 and about half of the women diagnosed with ovarian cancer are 63 years or older (American Cancer Society).

“The Breast are considered to be in the reproductive system because they are able to produce milk during childbirth” ("Breast Pictures, Anatomy & Anatomy | Body Maps," 2005). There are many risk factors that increase a woman’s chances of developing breast cancer, but it is not yet known exactly how some of these risk factors cause cells to become cancerous. Some of the few risk factors that are included are taking

This ability of malign cancer to make their way across basement membrane and into blood vessels is what makes cancer so fatal and impossible to be cure by surgery alone. The result of metastasis and invasion in normal tissue by cancer cells are often seen as one of the distinctive features of malignancy (Ruoslahti 1996). Even though the ability of invasion and metastasis are one of the hallmarks for cancer, these abilities are not unique to cancer cells as it can also occur during the early development stage of the embryo, in healthy organisms and in many noncancerous diseases (Mareel & Leroy 2003). It does not matter whenever the organism has developed benign or malign cancer, all cancer cells have the ability to disturb the normal cell cycle and threaten the survival of the organism.

A study conducted by Dr. Lineberger of the University of North Carolina on the molecular mechanisms of breast cancer progression noted that, “The development of breast cancer is thought to occur through a multi-step process. The majority of breast cancers

“BRCA1-mutated cancer tends to be basal- like, and BRCA2-mutated cancer tends to be luminal-like, although mechanistically there is no convincing evidence that BRCA1 mutation induces basal progenitor cancer cells or that BRCA2 mutation corresponds to luminal progenitor cancer cells at the early stages of carcinogenesis” (Yu & Shao, 2012, para. 1). The hormonal changes during menstrual cycle, which creates reactive oxygen species (ROS) is questioned in causing BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation. Breast carcinogenesis required large amount of oxidative DNA damage caused by ROS. Long period of harmful effect of ROS along with genotoxic or mutagenic oestrogen metabolites can be identified as risk factors of breast cancer. BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are determined to be the major cause at the initiation of breast cancer since “the loss of the wild-type allele of BRCA1 or BRCA2 is not required for BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation-associated breast carcinogenesis” (Yu & Shao, 2012, para. 2). Therefore, mutation of BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes cannot be categorized as cancer initiation genes. Other factors such as levels of ROS and HR capability, influence in the process of cancer cell development and trigger initiation of mutated BRCA1 and BRCA2 to represent properties that affect cancer subtypes.

Cancer is a word that most everyone fears. It affects millions of lives on an everyday basis. However, breast cancer seems to grab more attention due to its recurrence. According to an article in Opposing Viewpoints, breast cancer is a disease in which abnormal breast cells begin to grow uncontrollably, forming tumors. Breast cancer is highly common amongst today’s society, and has sparked much research in the medical field worldwide.

Cancer is a systemic disease and advanced cancers can be locally advanced or metastatic. Generally, the metastatic potential is through to be due to tumor heterogeneities which origin from the differences generated in the evolution process of cancer itself as well as host microenvironment. The capability of invasion and metastasis is closely related to cell motility and requires the cytoskeleton that is essential during mitoses[18]. Since malignancy criteria are mainly related to the phenotype of actively proliferating cells, metastatic deposits genetically match well-differentiated areas of primary and invasive areas[19]. These factors need attention when planning the evaluation of intratumoral heterogeneity and detailed specification would be necessary to pinpoint the intratumoral location, to assess selective process and to analyze pathways[18, 20]. These biological foundations would improve the therapeutic design and patient’s management base on heterogeneity.

The human body is composed of trillions of living cells. Normal body cells develop, split to make new cells, and perish in a systematized manner. During the course of a human’s primary years, they are still developing and normal cells divide more rapidly. When a child grows into an adult, majority of cells divide for the sole purpose of replacing exhausted, impaired, or dying cells. Cancer originates in cells that are part of the body that starts to grow out of control (Lockhart, Rothenberg, & Berlin 2005). There are various types of cancer, and they all develop in the body due to the exponential growth of abnormal cells. Cancer cell growth differs from normal cell growth. As an alternative of dying, cancer cells continue to grow and create new cancer cells. In a lot of cases, the cancer cells form a tumor. Cancer cells can furthermore develop into other tissues by invading, which normal cells cannot do (Lockhart et al. 2005). This is how Cancer explores to other parts of the body such as the pancreas which what I will be focusing on in this paper.