Syllabus
1. Cancer epidemiology, and prevention of cancer.
2. The mechanism of basic phases of carcinogenic processes - initiation, promotion, and progression.
3. Biotransformation in carcinogenesis (activation of carcinogens, ultimate carcinogens, DNA modification, enzymes participating in initiation of carcinogenesis).
4. Oxidative stress, DNA adducts, and DNA repair.
5. Mutagenicity and carcinogenicity testing (principles and limitations).
6. Principles of cancer treatment and mechanisms of action of anticancer drugs.
Annotation
The course aims to explain the biochemical processes leading to the development of cancer diseases, their treatment, and prevention. The course is a lecture useful for chemists and especially for biochemists. At first, essential information on cancer as a disease is given (tumors, their classification, and characterization), on cancer development, factors inducing and influencing the processes of carcinogenesis. The mechanism of basic phases of carcinogenic processes/initiation, promotion, progression is explained. Data on metastasis processes are also given. Three phases of carcinogenesis are shown in detail (initiation developed from factors causing the DNA damage, promotional phase - increased proliferation, mechanism of the effects of radicals and the active forms of oxygen, enzymes participating in imitational and promotional phases of carcinogenesis, the function of protein kinase C). The progression phase of carcinogenesis is shown as the phase involving the additional, final, modification of DNA. The role of endogenous and exogenous carcinogens and enzymes participating in this phase of carcinogenesis is underlined. The target of the course is also to explain the organ specificity of carcinogens and repair systems for DNA lesions. The final parts of the course are aimed at explanation of principles of cancer treatment (chemotherapy, radiation, surgery), in detail are classified anticancer drugs and their mechanism of action (antimetabolites, intercalators, drug alkylating/arylating DNA, mitotic drugs, hormone derivatives, inhibitors of hormone synthesis, inhibitors of topoisomerases, inhibitors of protein synthesis). The significance of epidemiology cancer prevention is underlined.
Lectures - in Czech -