Cell Cycle And Cancer Lab
I. Purpose
The purpose of this lab is to compare and contrast the normal cell cycle and cancer cells.
II. BackgroundThe cell cycle is a process where the cell grows and duplicates.
In the early 1980's scientists found a protein that regulated the cell cycle. The protein was called cyclin. Many regulators were found after cyclin. There are two types of regulatory proteins: Internal and external. Internal regulators allow the cell cycle to proceed only when certain processes have happened inside the cell. External stimulate the growth and division of cells, molecules tell the cells to slow down or stop the cell cycle. When the cells don't respond they start growing and duplicating without control, this is called cancer. |
III. HypothesisI believe normal cells will look different than cancerous cells when looking at a sample of cells. Normal cells will have a normal cell cycle, cancer cells wont. Cancer cells wouldn't respond to the signs the regulators send to them, so cells will start to grow and divide without control. If my hypothesis is correct, I will see a greater percentage of cells dividing in cancer tissues versus all the normal tissues.
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IV. Materials (Virtual Lab Online)
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V. Procedure1. Click the monitor to watch the video about the cell cycle.
2. Click the information button to learn about cancer. 3. Click on the microscope to begin learning about the phases of mitosis. 4. Click and drag the label to the corresponding cell under the microscope. 5. Open the data table and begin recording the number of cells in each phase of mitosis in the tissue sample. |
VI. Data
The data table below lists the number of cells per area present in various phases of the cell cycle observed in three different types of tissue in both normal and cancerous cells.
Below is a graph of the data I collected (phases of the cell cycle, x-axis v. tissue types, y -axis).
VII. Journal QUESTIONS
- Some differences between the normal cells and cancer cells are that normal cells divide normally and cancer cells divide without control.
- Cancerous tissues have higher mitotic index because they reproduce without control and they divide faster.
- From normal muscle, skin, kidney, or lung tissues I expect to see skin tissues to have the highest mitotic index because skin cells keep replacing themselves.
VIII. Conclusion
The purpose of this experiment was to compare and contrast the normal cell cycle and cancer cells. In my hypothesis I stated that normal cells would look different than cancerous cells when looking at a sample of cells. While normal cells responded without any problem to the regulators, cancer cells wouldn't respond to the signs the regulators send to them, so cells would start to grow and divide without control. The experiment supported my hypothesis by showing that cancer cells duplicated without control.