You have a patient with an aggressive tumor that needs treatmentright away, but to determine the correct treatment you need todiscover the cause of the cancer. You have two hypotheses toconsider. (1) The tumor is caused by a viral oncogene consisting ofan active viral gene fused with the coding region of the DVL1 gene(the human homolog of the Drosophila Dsh gene). (2) Thetumor cells have two loss of function point mutations that alterthe structure of the BRCA1 protein product and render the proteinnonfunctional. Each type of tumor responds well to only onespecific treatment.
a. What test or tests would you do to determine which is thecorrect cause of this tumor?
b. What results would you expect from your test or tests foreach?
c. Explain to the patient (who is not a scientist) how theseresults have helped you decide which treatment touse. Â
