CANCER GENOME EVOLUTION

Mechanisms generating cancer genome complexity: Back to the future

Understanding the mechanisms underlying cancer genome evolution has been a major goal for decades. A recent study combining live cell imaging and single-cell genome sequencing suggested that interwoven chromosome breakage-fusion-bridge cycles, micronucleation events and chromothripsis episodes drive cancer genome evolution. This led us to discuss the “interphase breakage model", suggested from our prior fluorescent in situ hybridization data that led to a similar conclusion. In this model, the rapid genome evolution observed at early stages of gene amplification was proposed to result from the interweaving of an amplification mechanism (breakage-fusion-bridge cycles) and of a deletion mechanism (micronucleation and stitching of DNA fragments retained in the nucleus).

More info :

Science 2020, 368, e-letter : https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6488/eaba0712/tab-e-letters

Cancers 2020,12, 3783:  https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers12123783