Question

1. Describe the concept of tissue homeostasis. How does a lack of tissue homeostasis potentially lead to carcinogenesis?

2. Define “sustaining proliferative signaling”, and describe how this contributes to carcinogenesis.

Answer 1

1)

A homeostatic process involved in the maintenance of an internal steady state within a defined tissue of an organism, including control of cellular proliferation and death and control of metabolic function is called tissue homeostasis. Homeostasis is maintained by the body’s responses to adverse stimuli, ensuring maintenance of an optimal physiological environment. Human homeostasis refers to complex interactions to regulate and maintain the internal conditions of the organism under stable condition.

Deregulation of homeostatic processes or imbalance in tissue homeostasis esultss in different forms of imbalances that can turn to various diseases like hepatitis, cirrhosis and tumor formation. Abnormal growth of tissues can lead to a broad spectrum of neoplastic diseases from tissue swelling, primary tumor formation, cancer and ultimately to secondary tumors known as metastases.

2)

sustaining proliferative signaling
Normal cells are sustained homeostasis by carefully controlled growth promoting signals and cell cycles. Cancer cells can proliferate rapidly by deregulating these signals, typically containing intracellular tyrosine kinase domains.
The ability of cancer cells to sustain the chronic proliferation allows them to grow into tumors, metastasize and then invade the other regions of the body. Deregulation of cell signalling pathways allows the cancer cells to upregulate growth signals and downregulate antigrowth signals.