In patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia one sees an odd chromosome in all of the cancerous cells. A small piece of chromosome 9 is connected to chromosome 22. This 9:22 translocation has been termed the Philadelphia chromosome. How could a translocation cause genetic changes that result in cancer?
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Interferon is a molecule that sets up an "alert" state in cells so that they can respond quickly to viral infection. This alert state actually causes the cell to self-destruct when a virus enters the cell. This is beneficial to the organism since the virus is prevented from producing progeny virus. For this system to work, the cell must be able to respond as rapidly as possible to the incoming virus. What hypothesis would explain how gene expression could produce the most rapid response? How could you use drugs that inhibit transcription to test the hypothesis?
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