What enzyme is present in cancer cells which allows cancer cells to keep growing indefinitely?
I think I now but not sure? Help Needed.:confused:

There are loads of different ones. The most famous one is the mutated version of p53. p53 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Any protein which is responsible for preventing cell death (apoptosis) which has been up regulated for any reason (usually some sort of mutation in it or one of it's controlling proteins) can be cancerous.

Also mutation in genes for proteins which promote apoptosis causing them to be less active will be oncogenic.

Usually you need more than one mutation to occur in a cells genes in order to cause it to become cancerous. So you'd need an increase in some growth signals and a knock out or attenuation of an apoptotic protein. This means that tumours are generally clonal in origin. They occur when one cell manages to accrue enough mutations without them being spotted and fixed.

This is why you are not a giant cancerous lump- because you need several mutations. However if you were heterogeneous for a mutated version of say, p53, then you would have a much higher chance of getting cancers as this will be one less mutation you would require to happen spontaneously.

Also p53 is responsible for the regulation of many other important regulatory proteins in the cell cycle - read the wikipedia entry for more detail.

OK I've gone in lecture mode now so I'll leave but if you want any more info or explanation of any terms I have used just post back and I'll try to help.

Here is a really good site explaining cancers and their genetic basis
How cancer starts

Thank you for your help. Looking more into this topic I found out what I was looking for.

Cool, well if you need any more help I'm here. What level are you studying at if you don't mind me asking?

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Originally Posted by Questionshelp

what enzyme is present in cancer cells which allows cancer cells to keep growing indefinitely?
I think I now but not sure? Help Needed.:confused:

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I think that would be the enzyme telomerase.

^^^ It does in the HeLa cell lines but not all cancer cells.

Cancer cells and their mechanism of proliferation is very complicated we can not directly say whether this enzyme or this particular gene is involved in cancer cells apoptotic condition. To list there are some more than 30 kinds of cancers detected till the date.now there over 30 million genes controlling the each characteristics.Only an alteration of a single gene can lead to be cancerous for the body.

Now the question asked here is what enzymes are involved in the process of its proliferation... this is more of adding to information that in the case of hepatocellular carcinoma(liver cancer) there a chain of enzyme sequences(polymerases, aminotranferases, serine transferases etc) that help the virus to develop and increase its copy number, leading to invading more other cells and killing them to restore their own copies through reproduction, now these cells which are invaded by these viruses die and add up to the dead cells and continue making carcinoma cells and debris.

p53 is involved in a number of cancers. Actually this a gene that goes abnormal and adapts to cancer production and it is known of it tumour producing ability.
BRAC(braka) is the one involved in breast cancer develpoment.
There are thousands to be listed,so as the genes are ,there are millions of enzymes involved in this process too.


IMPORTANT: attempts in research mostly go unsuccessful,because it is difficult to block these enzymes which are common in cancer cell production and normal physiology or body functioning. When scientists produce or design some drug to block the cancerous activity of some enzyme it blocks the good useful enzymes. Lets hope through bioinformatics we someday block these cells through tagging the bad cells and enzymes particularly.

Hela cell line is the one that keep on dividing and they are maintained, more about these cells is not known to me.but something I doubt is there linkage with breast cancer.

The HeLa cell line is from a lady who had cervical cancer Henrietta Lacks Henrietta Lacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh yesthanks for the correction
But don't u think they, the scientists must have maintained the cell line conditions to leave them alive
Do u know more about them
Give some details but briefly please

Right I have not worked with mammalian cells myself; I have only used Yeast and bacteria cells as I am not a microbiologist. However this is my understanding of the HeLa cell line.

It is a immortalised cell line that was transformed by the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). They can divide indefinitely in vitro provided they have the correct culture conditions. I have a friend who was working on mammal cell lines and this seems to be a real pain- glad I've stuck to simpler cells so far.

Hela cell line is the one that keep on dividing and they are maintained, more about these cells is not known to me.but something I doubt is there linkage with breast cancer.


Well thanks... for the brief information about it .
Actually the bacterial and mammalian cell lines have got bit similar protocol to preserve and work with them.
But the Hela cells remain a mystery as such...

It got to be interesting because their division without exhaustion and dying off.

No one mention their linkage to breast cancer - there isn't one unless you count the cancer link!

I didn't mention more about the cell line as it is easiely googled or looked up in research papers/ review journals and I really don't feel like researching a minor essay into a subjuct outwith my field right now. You should have a look yourself though if you are interested as it is a common cell line and it's immortality does come about by a very intersting mechanism.

I think new chemotherapies are being developed that effect these cancer cells and enzymes... we should comment on it further.