HPV causes cancer!?!
how the genes, proteins, and mitosis contribute
what is HPV and how does it cause cancer?
- HPV is short for human papillomavirus and is a group of more than 150 related viruses. Each HPV virus in this large group is given a number which is called its HPV type. HPV is named for the warts (papillomas) some HPV types can cause. Some other HPV types can lead to cancer, especially cervical cancer. There are more than 40 HPV types that can infect the genital areas of males and females. But there are vaccines that can prevent infection with the most common types of HPV.
- HPV can cause cervical and other cancers including cancer of the vulva, or anus. It can also cause cancer in the back of the throat, including the base of the tongue and tonsils. ancer often takes years, even decades, to develop after a person gets HPV. The types of HPV that can cause genital warts are not the same as the types of HPV that can cause cancers. There is no way to know which people who have HPV will develop cancer or other health problems. People with weak immune systems (including individuals with HIV/AIDS) may be less able to fight off HPV and more likely to develop health problems from it.
Genses & Protiens
HPV is a double-stranded DNA that codes for 8 proteins. 6 are located in the "early" stage while the other to are in the "late" stage. (this is where they get E1,E2,E3,E4,E5 and E6. Then they have L1, and L2.) The "early" genes are regulatory in function such as, HPV genome replication and transcription, cell cycle, cell signalling and many other things. E2, E6, and E7 are oncogenes ( a gene that has the potential to cause cancer) The late proteins L1 and L2 are capsid protiens and are only expressed when the virus copies and repackages it.
P53 & RB tumor suppressors
P53 and RB tumor suppressors will stop the division of damaged or cancerous cells, but what E6 and E7 do is that they "mask" or totally stop the function of the tumor suppressors and the cell that is damaged divides and doesn't stop dividing because that do not have the tumor suppressors to stop the cell from dividing, witch causes more mitosis.
E6 & E7
These Proteins prevent the cell from apoptosis (committing suicide, or killing themselves to prevent the cell from multiplying and possibly leading to cancer.) Since the proteins stop the cell from "commenting suicide" the damaged cell keeps dividing and building up the mutations, which is the definition of cancer.
telomere & telomarse
Telomere is attached to the bottom of a chromosome and will limit the number of cell divisions, and when this happens the chromosome will become damaged at the bottom, making a cell cancerous. But then the cell will perform apoptosis, which will kill the cell so it doesn't cause cancer. But telomarse will rebuild the telomere and allows it to divide unlimited causing mitosis and more cancer.
Mitosis
When a cell goes through mitosis, some cells will break off such as bone cells, and stop dividing(which would be G0), but sometimes what will happen is the protein will keep the cell in the cycle of mitosis which will make the cell dividing, causing mitosis of cancerous cells.