# Gene

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/gene/  
OnCo record `gene` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

A stretch of DNA that holds the recipe for one protein (or one working RNA). Humans have about 20,000, and cancer typically involves a handful of them going wrong.

## Summary

A gene includes the coding sequence itself and the regulatory regions that decide when, where and how much it is read. Cancer-relevant genes fall into two broad classes: oncogenes, whose overactivity drives growth, and tumour suppressors, whose loss removes a brake. Gene names on this site (EGFR, KRAS, BRCA1, TP53) refer both to the gene and to the protein it encodes; a drug 'targets EGFR' means it blocks the EGFR protein, while 'EGFR-mutant' means the gene carries a change that alters the protein.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Also known as: genes; genetic

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene

## Connected records

- terms: [Chromosome](https://onco.cc/terms/chromosome/), [DNA](https://onco.cc/terms/dna-term/), [Gene expression](https://onco.cc/terms/gene-expression/), [Mutation](https://onco.cc/terms/mutation/), [Nucleus](https://onco.cc/terms/nucleus/), [Oncogene](https://onco.cc/terms/oncogene/), [Protein](https://onco.cc/terms/protein/), [RNA](https://onco.cc/terms/rna/), [Tumour suppressor gene](https://onco.cc/terms/tumour-suppressor-gene/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/gene.json