Cancer

• what are the 4 characteristics that are tightly regulated in nomrla cells: survival, differentiation, death, proliferation
• Tumour is an abnormal cell growth and consist of many tumour cells
• oncogenes are stimulatory genes that become increasingly active or have increased expression in cancer 
• Proto-oncogenes: are what human oncogenes are derived from and are the normal sequence in the human genome that encodes a protein that allows for normal physiology (mostly cell division)
• Tumour suppressor genes: genes that prevent cells from progressing to cancerous states
• For tumour supressor genes what do virusss do: encode proteins that intefere with the proteins produced by these
• central tolerance: is that fact the CTLs have gained tolerance to normal proteins due to those recognising these proteins being selected agiainst in the thymus
• Each CTL has a specificty for a certain peptide corresponding to a certain protein
• What are the two types of antigens of cancer cells that TCRs can recognise: mutated proteins (neo-antigens) and unmutated, newly expressed proteins
• 23% of people have HLA-A3 which allows them to recognise a certain mutation in the ras protein, and target cells that exhibit this'
• Three genes encode MHC Class I: HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C
• What did immune checkpoint blockade prove?

  • provided proof that therapy that increases attack by T lymphocytes on tumours without directly targeting tumour cells can have a huge impact on cancer