You have a patient with an aggressive tumor that needs treatment right away, but to determine...

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Medical Sciences

You have a patient with an aggressive tumor that needs treatmentright away, but to determine the correct treatment you need todiscover the cause of the cancer. You have two hypotheses toconsider. (1) The tumor is caused by a viral oncogene consisting ofan active viral gene fused with the coding region of the DVL1 gene(the human homolog of the Drosophila Dsh gene). (2) Thetumor cells have two loss of function point mutations that alterthe structure of the BRCA1 protein product and render the proteinnonfunctional. Each type of tumor responds well to only onespecific treatment.
a. What test or tests would you do to determine which is thecorrect cause of this tumor?
b. What results would you expect from your test or tests foreach?
c. Explain to the patient (who is not a scientist) how theseresults have helped you decide which treatment touse.Â Â

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3.7 Ratings (641 Votes)

a DVL1 is a gene that encodes a phosphoprotein that induces cell proliferation When the promoter of active viral gene is fused to the coding region of DVL1 gene the DVL1 protein is expressed in these cells as an oncogene Thus it will induce cell proliferation resulting in formation of tumors Oncogenes are known to induce excessive cell proliferation in cells due to their effect on DNA replication in S phase In case of second scenario the tumor may be caused by effect of tumor suppressor gene inactivation Tumor suppressor genes such as BRCA1 inhibit cell division and cause apoptosis They are mostly DNA repair genes that will repair mutations caused in DNA Loss of function mutation in BRCA1 would cause production of nonfunctional protein This would cause increased cell proliferation In order to analyze whether the tumor is caused by DVL1 or BRCA1 mutation the cells from the patient can be isolated and the expression of DVL1 and BRACA1 can be analyzed Another assay that See Answer

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