General Medicine

» P_Al - DNA editing

It seems that superscripts are not picked up on the site. I have removed them to avoid confusion - we'll just stick to the numbers.

Yes, cancer is cunning. The various mechanisms that I have written about recently are all normal processes within cells that control vital functions like replication, adhesion, programmed cell death and DNA repair. All have been sidetracked in various cancers. The good news however, is that many of these genetic abnormalities would have been removed before they can be passed on to the next generation of cells. It is at this stage that they are usually called mutations and pose a more serious risk.

Thanks for the feedback on the article. Will consider writing more on methylation at a later date. For now let me just say the methylation is the addition of a methyl group (small chemical compound) to the side of the units that make up the DNA. You could imagine them as sticking out from the chain of bases (units of DNA). They are then identified by the replication apparatus which is 'programmed' to associate their presence with a more mature DNA strand.

Hope that helps.

-- posted by P_Al