Is it worse to get a mutation or a tumor suppressor than an oncogene?
Mutations in either tumor suppressors or proto-oncogenes can be devastating. I don’t think there is a better or worse about it. Very frequently a cancer upon evaluation with have mutations in both. Typically for mutation in tumor suppressor genes to cause cancer both copies have to be knocked out. Where as mutations in oncogenes are primarily activating mutations, so there are mutations in the one copy of the oncogene that make it more active. Whereas mutations in tumor suppressor genes are typically mutations that wipe out the function of the tumor suppressor genes so it becomes inactive. Can you expound on the idea that cancers are genetic but they are not all inherited? We correctly think that all cancer is genetic, but only a very small fraction of cancer is inherited from parents to children, under 10% typically for most types of cancer. That brings up the question, what is the difference between what’s inherited and what’s genetic. Indeed what is the difference between inherited,
