Shannon B. answered • 1d
15 years of experience with 95% success rate
There are 7 oncogenic viruses that are known to induce cancer in humans. These include Human papillomavirus, Hepatitis B virus, Hepatitis C virus, Epstein-Barr virus, Human Herpesvirus type 8, Human T-cell Lymphotropic virus, Human Polyomaviruses, Merkel cell polyomavirus, and HIV.
Various experimental studies have identified the basic mechanism by which oncogenic pathogens transform healthy cells, whether by accumulating genomic insults resulting in DNA damage, evading growth suppressors, resisting apoptotic signals, enabling replicative immortality, or inducing angiogenesis.
Malignancy is developed when normal cell growth control mechanisms are disturbed, cells exhibit uncontrolled proliferation and cease to carry out the normal tissue-specific functions.
Although cancer is a genetic disease, it is not inherited. A person who has cancer will not pass that tumor to their offspring because it arose from somatic mutations. But there are examples where a family may have a higher-than-expected incidence of cancer. These are called familial cancers, in contrast to sporadic cancers that occur in people with no family history of the disease.
Familial incidence of cancer occurs because family members share a disease-associated allele in a tumor suppressor gene. An important distinction is that the cancer itself is not inherited from a parent; rather, the susceptibility to disease is inherited.
Sporadic cancer requires two successive mutations, one in each allele of a tumor suppressor. Inherited cancers begin with a germline mutation in one copy of a tumor suppressor, so only one additional mutation is needed.
