“What is the difference between transformation and transfection?”
Not much, really. Although it’s not just a matter of semantics, the difference is very subtle.
Transformation in cloning is the process in which a cell “takes up” exogenous DNA from its surroundings through its cell membrane. If the cell later goes on to express this uptaken genetic material, it is said to be transformed. However, the term transformation in this sense is restricted only to Read more »
Chromosomal Rearrangements (adopted from Hampton, Hollander, Miller et al. 2008)
Yesterday, I was just browsing through the internet and stumbled upon a really interesting article called “The Chaos Inside a Cancer Cell” in New York Times in the science section. Naturally, it grabbed my attention because of my immediate interests in cancer genetics but the article was just a brief overview with very few details so I decided to venture a bit deeper and dug up the actual article from Pubmed. It is available for free so everybody can view it if you so decide.
Now, obviously the reason I am writing this post is to let you in on some of the details of this beautiful paper and spare you some of the complexities. On that note, let me get started. The article explores genomic aberrations in MCF-7 breast cancer cell line derived from a 69-year old Caucasian woman in 1970 who underwent two mastectomies. Many researchers choose this cell line because it has been very extensively researched and documented upon, making it a good research model.
As you may know, one of the common characteristics of a cancer cell is its uncanny ability to survive. ‘Normal’ cells have a biological clock and they have a mechanism to self-destruct called apoptosis. But cancer cells do NOT. Additionally, if DNA breaks or damaged DNA are not corrected, it is often a signal for the cell to kill itself but cancer cells can surpass that checkpoint. It is also pretty widely accepted now that chromosomal instability leads to tumorigenesis. These are basically genetic mutations that either enhance cell survival or proliferation. In all, it makes studying cancer genomes of obvious interest relative to normal genomes to understand their unique survival and/or proliferative advantage. Read more »
