My question deals with cancer. I have been hearing on your show that 3-5 mutatio

Question

My question deals with cancer. I have been hearing on your show that 3-5 mutation in the stem cells leads to cancer (cancers are so different) but working as a cytogenetics in Chicago specifically leukemia. There are many translocations that are linked directly to translocations of the chromsomes. For example the translocation 9; 22 is associated with mainly Chronic Myeloid Leukemia but also is linked to Acute Lymphoid Leukemia.

This translocation breaks the BCR and ABL genes that lead to an abnormal tyrosine kinase being formed. How does this agree/disagree with the 3-5 mutation rule that I have been hearing about ?

Explanation / Answer

Well cancer happens when genes called tumour suppressor genes and oncogenes are mutated and cause the cell to start dividing abnormally. And this can happen when you get single point mutations in your DNA which mutate an oncogene or a tumour suppressor gene, but they can also occur when two genes can come together abnormally in a translocation and what this can often do is to drive a gene which is not normally active in a particular cell type up to an abnormal level of activity which can sometimes cause the cell to become cancerous.

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