Part I – Jordan’s Health Concerns
Based on his symptoms, what do you hypothesize is wrong with Jordan?
Jordan has a brain tumor, which is often characterized by headaches, drowsiness, and nausea.
What additional information do you need to know to support this hypothesis?
I would need Jordan’s family medical histories as well as the results of both the blood test and the CT scan.
Part II – Jordan’s Diagnosis
What type of tumor could Jordan have? Explain your reasoning.
Jordan could have developed malignant occipital cells in his brain. Such cells cause stress on the lobes of the brain, which causes problems with vision as he has.
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What is the difference between a benign and malignant tumor?
A benign tumor is non-cancerous cells that is does not spread to other cell tissues around it, whereas a malignant tumor is a cancerous cells that is multiply faster than what the immune system can handle.
How do cancers form?
Metabolic processes fail to regulate proper growth of cells after they undergo an unusual form of mutation, which altered their proper functionality.
Part III – Jordan’s Therapy
In general, how do cancer chemotherapies work?
Radiation and surgery are used to kill the cancer cells. Besides, drugs known as cytostatic are given to aid in stopping the division of the cancerous cells.
The promoter region of DNA is where the enzyme RNA polymerase attaches to start transcription of a gene into RNA. Figure 1 shows examples of unmethylated and methylated promoters. What effects do you hypothesize that methylation can have on the expression of a gene?
The presentation of genes in the affected cells stops with the help of Methylation of MGMT. As a result, they do not uncontrollably continue to divide and grow.
Examine Figure 1 and describe how methylation of the MGMT promoter relates to the probability of survival of patients with glioblastoma.
The process of Methylation increases the chances of a patient’s survival by up to two times.
Ignoring whether or not the MGMT promoter is methylated or unmethylated, do these cancer patients generally have a good prognosis?
In general, most patients with cancerous cells have limited to no chances of surviving. Moreover, the treatment still does not fully guarantee them full recovery or survival.
Propose at least two other ways that doctors could treat Jordan’s cancer regardless of whether or not his MGMT promoter is methylated or unmethylated.
Before attempting surgery, the physicians should try using Neoadjuvant chemotherapy to reduce the size of the tumor to make it easy to remove via surgical operations. If that does not seem to be successful, they could try palliative chemotherapy, which works when not all tumor cells could be removed. It slows down the cancer and helps in reducing complications to the patient.
Part IV – Gene Regulation
What role does MGMT play in cancer cell regulation?
The genetic makeup of MGMT provides a protein that repairs DNA. In the case that its cytosines are methylated, this repair becomes less appropriate to the cells malfunctioned by temozolomide.
Is it more favorable for Jordan to have methylated or unmethylated MGMT promoters? Explain why.
It is favorable for him to have methylated MGMT because the cells would be exposed to apoptosis, which successfully kills them.
Examine Figure 2 and describe based on the graphical results, the best hypothetical treatment for Jordan if his MGMT promoter is unmethylated.
Without methylation, promising chances of the patient’s survival are only guaranteed by radiotherapy and temozolomide.
Relate MGMT methylation to what you know about the central dogma/flow of genetic information and how genes are expressed.
Apoptosis occurs in the cells depending on whether MGMT found temozolomide damaged them or did not.
If Jordan had an identical twin, what is the likelihood that his brother would also develop this cancer?
There are higher chances of his twin developing the disease because of the high-level genes’ similarity between them. However, genes do have more than one function, and so it does not guarantee similar occurrence to the twin.
Devise a therapy that could potentially circumvent resistance to temozolomide.
An alternative would be surgery. However, experimental diagnoses such as hyperthermia can also be used as treatment. Other than these, the therapy could try using bone marrow or stem cell transplants to treat the cancer.
