i understand how radiation causes cancer, because the high energy radiation can rip through cells and damage DNA. What i don't understand is how things which are not radioactive damage DNA, such as carcinogens. everywhere i've looked it has said that carcinogens cause cancer because they alter the DNA, but i'm interested in exactly how this occurs.
Thanks in advance
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Different carcinogens can damage DNA in different ways - so the answer is really hard to pin-down.
For example, the toxin Etoposide specifically interferes with the DNA-associated enzyme Topoisomerase II. This enzyme normally assists in DNA replication and transcription by "unzipping" and "re-zipping" the DNA to the other proteins can get at it; when interfered with, this causes DNA strand breakage.
Polycyclic hydrocarbons - chemicals containing lots of carbon rings - can "interchellate" between the bases of DNA, distorting the structure of the helix, and resulting in replication errors when the DNA polymerase tries to read through the distortion.
Nucleotide analogues can look similar enough to nucleotides that DNA polymerase accidentally incoprorates them into the DNA strand when symthesising new DNA; but they won't hydrogen-bond to the other strand correctly. DNA repair enzymes should recognise this - but they might pick the wrong base to "repair", and accidentally replace the correct base, leaving the "wrong" analogue in place, and changing the DNA sequence.
Inhibtors which interfere with DNA replication, repair, etc. enzymes can obviously cause them to make mistakes in their dealings with DNA, and introduce mutations.
Reactive chemical substances - like oxygen radicals - can chemically attack many substances in the cell, DNA included.
... the list goes on.
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A carcinogen is a substance that causes a normal cell to change into a cancerous cell, resulting in uncontrolled cell growth. Cancer cells can multiply unchecked, forming a mass of tissue called a tumor. Sometimes cancerous cells "break off" from a tumor, traveling through the body and multiplying in other organs and tissues. How carcinogens cause cancer ? Carcinogens cause cancer by producing changes (or mutations) in the genetic material, or DNA, of a cell. These mutations result in uncontrolled cell division. A cancer-causing substance can alter the DNA of a cell directly or it can react with other chemicals in the body to form substances that cause gene mutations. (Genes are sections of DNA that serve as units of hereditary information.) A transformed cell may continue to function normally and not begin to multiply and develop into a tumor until many months or years later. It is not unusual for cancer to appear 20 to 25 years after initial exposure to a carcinogen.-
The term carcinogen refers to any substance, radionuclide or radiation that is an agent directly involved in the promotion of cancer or in the fatation of its propagation. This may be due to ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive substances are considered carcinogens, but their carcinogenic activity is attributed to the radiation, for example gamma rays and alpha particles, which they emit. Common examples of carcinogens are inhaled asbestos, certain dioxins, and tobacco smoke.
Cancer is a disease where damaged cells of the patient's body do not undergo programmed cell death, but their growth is no longer controlled and their metabolism is altered. Carcinogens may increase the risk of getting cancer by altering cellular metabolism or damaging DNA directly in cells, which interferes with biological processes, and induces the uncontrolled, malignant division, ultimately leading to the formation of tumors. Usually DNA damage, if too severe to repair, leads to programmed cell death, but if the programmed cell death pathway is damaged, then the cell cannot prevent itself from becoming a cancer cell.
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