Tumor Suppressor Genes

Overview

• Mechanism 
  • loss of function mutation in a tumor suppressor gene
    • regulate cell growth and repair damage
    • see Cell cycle topic 
  • because one functioning tumor suppressor gene copy can produce enough functioning protein to prevent neoplasia, two allele alterations needed for neoplasia  
    • two-hit model
    • note many of the inherited cancer disorders have an inherited loss of 1 copy
• Examples