THEORETICAL INVESTIGATIONS ON ONCOGENE ACTIVATION BY CHEMICALS AND ANTIONCOGENE INACTIVATION BY RADIATION

To activate the cancerous genetic information in the cell one has eith er to activate oncogenes or to inactivate antioncogenes (cancerous gro wth suppressing genes). These processes usually happen in the cell wit h the aid of external factors, especially chemical carcinogens and rad iations. It was shown with the aid of simple statistical consideration s that both oncogene activation by chemical carcinogens and the double strand breakings due to ionizing radiations leading to antioncogene i nactivation most probably are caused not only by local effects. Differ ent mechanisms (like the change of the tertiary structure, the change of the dispersion and polarization forces between DNA and proteins due to charge transfer and different soliton mechanisms) were investigate d to prove the role of long-range effects of carcinogens in initiating the malignant transformation of the eucaryotic cell.