Dysregulated signaling pathways in cancer: Approaches and applications

Abstract

Cancer-related deaths account for more than 8.8 million individuals per year globally. In spite of exhaustive literature about dysregulated signaling pathways in cancer, correlating it to patient survival warrants further understanding. Therefore, it is pertinent to investigate the working principles behind cellular and molecular tools which facilitate in delineating aberrant alterations used for targeting cancer cells. In addition to existing cell biology techniques, immunoblotting, PCR, FACS, ChIP, EMSA, etc. have immensely contributed to decipher altered molecular and metabolic pathways in cancer. Collectively, these have paved a way toward discoveries and inventions on which modern-day diagnostics and therapeutics are based. This chapter summarizes important techniques in molecular biology and the differential characteristics they target, to understand the approaches used to detect, diagnose, and treat cancer.