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Watching cancer cells evolve through chromosomal instability

Chromosomal abnormalities are a hallmark of many types of human cancer, but it has been difficult to observe such changes in living cells and to study how they arise. Progress is now being made on this front.
  1. Sarah C. Johnson

    1. Sarah C. Johnson is at the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London EC1M 6BQ, UK.

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  2. Sarah E. McClelland

    1. Sarah E. McClelland is at the Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London EC1M 6BQ, UK.

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The genomes of cancer cells are littered with mutations (errors in individual nucleotides), some of which might contribute to growth of the cancer by activating tumour-promoting genes called oncogenes, or by switching off genes belonging to a class known as tumour suppressors, which fight cancer. Yet, arguably even more important are the genomic abnormalities that occur in tumour cells on a much larger scale. For example, such a cell might contain anomalous numbers of entire chromosomes (a situation termed aneuploidy). As the tumour evolves, chromosomal abnormalities can vary between neighbouring cancer cells. This suggests that chromosomal changes can occur by repeated chromosomal ‘shuffling’ during each cell division, resulting in a high rate of genomic change, termed chromosomal instability.

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Nature 570, 166-167 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01709-2

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