Hunt for cancer causing genes

[Jay Kulsh]

Has any oncogene (cancer causing gene) been identified whose presence always causes cancer and whose absence keeps a tissue free of cancer?

(I would have preferred to post this question in some medicine category, but was not able to find a suitable category, like oncology.)

Jay

[CharonY]

I assume you mean allelic variants instead of genes, as pretty much every member of a species has the same genes. The only difference are small variations in the genes.

But even so we do not expect alleles to be always causing cancer. All cells in an individual carry the same alleles. So if there was an allele causing dysregulation of cellular replication, it is unlikely that a living organism would form. As such, all oncogenes basically increase the likelihood of cancer and/or tumors.

For the reverse question, a similar answer applies. One of the causes of cancers are mutations and there is no full protection against it.

[Sensei]

On 3/16/2021 at 5:39 PM, Jay Kulsh said:

Hunt for cancer causing genes

Oncogenes do not cause cancer. They just have the potential to cause cancer. that is, after severe code damage during replication, it may prevents programmed cell death.

For me thread title sounded more like you are interested in "genetic disorder", "genetic disease", not "cancer".. Damage of the code done several generations ago, which spread to organim offspring.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_disorder

To some extent genetic disorders are fixable by specially prepared viruses which will inject the corrected genetic material into existing cells and fix the problem. Such therapy is extremely expensive, counted in hundred thousands or millions USD, per person, and only the richest people can afford it, for the rest there is needed crowdfunding..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_vector

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oncolytic_virus

Edited March 18, 2021 by Sensei

[Jay Kulsh]

Thank you both.
@Sensei, the Wikipedia article you cited does talk about cancer when discussing Genetic disorder.