Misreading Of Damaged DNA May Spur Tumor Formation
Thursday, November 20, 2008 - 18:42
in Biology & Nature
Cells can turn on tumor-promoting growth circuits by falsely reporting critical genetic information during the process of transcription: making RNA from DNA. Damage to the DNA making up a gene can lead to a misreading of the gene as it is made into RNA, a process called transcriptional mutagenesis. Transcriptional mutagenesis could represent an additional way DNA damage contributes to tumor formation.