CAENORHABDITIS ELEGANS AS A MODEL TO DETERMINE THE MOLECULAR EFFECTS OF PLAUSIBLE ENVIRONMENTAL RISK FACTORS OF BREAST CANCER

Abstract

Cancer is a multi-faceted disease that may involve many different tissues of various origins. Environmental factors have been identified as agents of concern for carcinogenesis, but there is little known about the molecular interactions in the cell that lead to transformation from normal to malignant. Nematodes are among the model organisms recently being utilized to expand our understanding of oncogenesis, as 60-80% of human genes have an orthologue in the genome of C. elegans.