AP Biology—Unit 3Name:

Cancer Readings

Directions: You are going to read two selections about cancer. The first selection is in your Orange Campbell textbook. The second selection is an article from Nature Medicine. Below are separate directions for each selection. On a separate sheet of paper, please answer the questions and complete the tasks described below.Doing so will help you understand the important ideas highlighted in each reading.

Reading 1—Section 12.3 of Campbell Textbook (pp. 238-243)

  1. Describe 3 behaviors that differentiate cancer cells from normal cells.
  2. What is the difference between a benign tumor and a malignant tumor?
  3. Define metastasis.
  4. Based upon the information given to you in this reading, summarize how cancer occurs? In other words, how do cells become cancerous?

Reading 2—Vogelstein, B., and K. Kinzler, 2004, Cancer genes and the pathways they control, Nat

Med. 10:789–99

General Reading Strategies

  1. As you read, circle and make a list of vocabulary that you do not know. If you need to know the meaning of a wordto understand the reading, find the definition immediately. If you get the gist of the reading without the definition, go on and find the definition later. You should find the definition of each term, however, at some point.
  2. Look at each of the figures in the article, highlight/circle things that are familiar to you because of what we learned with cell signaling and/or because of what you have read in the article.
  3. Once you finish each section of the article, take a moment to write a BRIEF summary of the main point(s) of that section. The sections are:
  4. What we know
  5. What we don’t know

Specific Questions

  1. What are three categories of genes that, when mutated, can lead to tumor formation?
  2. The Vogelstein article uses the analogy of a car to explain what happens when genes in these three categories are mutated. Now it’s your turn: Make an analogy of your own to explain the differencesbetween these three kinds of genes.
  3. What does it mean to be predisposed to gettingcancer? If someone is predisposed to getting cancer,does that automatically mean that he or she will getcancer someday?
  4. Can you “catch” cancer like you catch a cold?
  5. Describe how the p53 protein works in a normal cell versus a cancerous cell. Why is understanding its activity important to cancer research?
  6. What do the authors explain to be the three major challenges for cancer researcher in the upcoming 10 years (2004-2014)?