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Other carcinogens may cause cancer through a variety of mechanisms without producing mutations, such as tumour promotion, immunosuppression that reduces the ability to fight cancer cells or pathogens that can cause cancer, disruption of the endocrine system (e.g. in breast cancer), tissue-specific toxicity, and inflammation (e.g. in colorectal ...
Hereditary cancers are primarily caused by an inherited genetic defect. A cancer syndrome or family cancer syndrome is a genetic disorder in which inherited genetic mutations in one or more genes predisposes the affected individuals to the development of cancers and may also cause the early onset of these cancers. Although cancer syndromes ...
These types of mutations are usually prompted by environmental causes, such as ultraviolet radiation or any exposure to certain harmful chemicals, and can cause diseases including cancer. [91] With plants, some somatic mutations can be propagated without the need for seed production, for example, by grafting and stem cuttings.
Cancers and tumors are caused by a series of mutations. Each mutation alters the behavior of the cell somewhat. Carcinogenesis, also called oncogenesis or tumorigenesis, is the formation of a cancer, whereby normal cells are transformed into cancer cells.
The German professor Wilhelm Fabry believed that breast cancer was caused by a milk clot in a mammary duct. The Dutch professor Francois de la Boe Sylvius, a follower of Descartes, believed that all disease was the outcome of chemical processes and that acidic lymph fluid was the cause of cancer.
DNA may be modified, either naturally or artificially, by a number of physical, chemical and biological agents, resulting in mutations. Hermann Muller found that "high temperatures" have the ability to mutate genes in the early 1920s, [2] and in 1927, demonstrated a causal link to mutation upon experimenting with an x-ray machine, noting phylogenetic changes when irradiating fruit flies with ...
Somatic mutations accumulate within an organism's cells as it ages and with each round of cell division; the role of somatic mutations in the development of cancer is well established, and the accumulation of somatic mutations is implicated in the biology of aging.
Deficient expression of DNA repair proteins due to an inherited mutation can cause increased risk of cancer. Individuals with an inherited impairment in any of 34 DNA repair genes (see article DNA repair-deficiency disorder) have an increased risk of cancer, with some defects causing up to a 100% lifetime chance of cancer (e.g. p53 mutations ...