Cancers are caused by a series of what?
microbes
adaptations
parasites
mutations
Cancers are caused by a series of mutations. Each mutation alters the behavior of the cell. In this example, the first mutation inactivates a tumor suppressor gene, the second mutation inactivates a DNA repair gene, the third mutation creates an oncogene, and a fourth mutation inactivates several more tumor suppressor genes, resulting in cancer. It should be noted that it does not necessarily require four or more mutations to lead to cancer.