{"entity":{"id":"gene","kind":"term","name":"Gene","aka":["genes","genetic"],"tldr":"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.","asOf":"2026-09-09","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene","links":[{"label":"Wikipedia","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene"}],"tags":[],"related":["dna-term","protein","mutation","oncogene","tumour-suppressor-gene","gene-expression"],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":[],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":[],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":[],"category":"Biology basics"},"route":"/terms/gene/","neighbours":{"term":[{"id":"chromosome","kind":"term","name":"Chromosome","route":"/terms/chromosome/"},{"id":"dna-term","kind":"term","name":"DNA","route":"/terms/dna-term/"},{"id":"gene-expression","kind":"term","name":"Gene expression","route":"/terms/gene-expression/"},{"id":"mutation","kind":"term","name":"Mutation","route":"/terms/mutation/"},{"id":"nucleus","kind":"term","name":"Nucleus","route":"/terms/nucleus/"},{"id":"oncogene","kind":"term","name":"Oncogene","route":"/terms/oncogene/"},{"id":"protein","kind":"term","name":"Protein","route":"/terms/protein/"},{"id":"rna","kind":"term","name":"RNA","route":"/terms/rna/"},{"id":"tumour-suppressor-gene","kind":"term","name":"Tumour suppressor gene","route":"/terms/tumour-suppressor-gene/"}]}}