Gene amplification articles from across Nature Portfolio

Gastric cancers (GC) are driven by genomic alterations, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Here, the authors analyse the structural rearrangement landscape of 170 GCs using whole-genome sequencing, identify recurrent structural variant hotspots and find oncogene amplicons driven by extrachromosomal DNA.

Most of the mutations accumulated in cancer cells are deleterious, and it is unclear how such alterations are tolerated. Here, the authors propose that copy number amplifications could increase the tolerance to deleterious mutations, and analyse the features that could determine the underlying selection process.

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) is essential for cancer cell survival and growth, and can be produced from three different pathways. Chowdry et al. show that lineage and tissue context determine which pathway is used for NAD synthesis in cancer.

A CRISPR-associated nuclease that can promiscuously cleave RNAs enables a rapid and cheap test for the single-molecule detection and single-base discrimination of nucleic acids.