â¢ AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE (noun). The noun AUTOIMMUNE DISEASE has 1 sense: 1. any of a large group of diseases characterized by abnormal functioning of the immune system that causes your immune system to produce antibodies against your own tissues.
The initiation of cell transformation is generally associated with genetic alterations in normal cells that lead to the loss of intercellular-and/or extracellular-matrix- (ECM-) mediated cell adhesion.ancer afflicts an organ or a tissue by inducing abnormal and uncontrolled division of cells that either constitute it or migrate to it. At the cellular level, this is caused by genetic alterations in networks that regulate cell division and cell death.
In the late stages of cancer, cells break through normal tissue boundaries and metastasize (spread) to new sites in the body. In normal cells, hundreds of genes intricately control the process of cell division. Normal growth requires a balance between the activity of those genes that promote cell proliferation and those that suppress it. It also relies on the activities of genes that signal when damaged cells should undergo apoptosis.