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Mutations differ in normal and cancer cells of the oesophagus

What determines whether genetic mutations lead to cancer? Analyses of healthy cells in the human oesophagus reveal that a high level of genetic alterations arises as people age, yet this doesn’t usually result in cancer.
  1. Francesca D. Ciccarelli

    1. Francesca D. Ciccarelli is at the Francis Crick Institute, London NW1 1AT, UK, and at the School of Cancer & Pharmaceutical Sciences, King’s College London.

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Errors in DNA replication can alter a cell’s DNA sequence. If such alterations occur early enough in embryonic development, the changes are inherited by all of an organism’s cells. But if the alterations arise later in adult life, it is more difficult to track such changes in a small number of cells in a specific tissue, so the extent of these alterations in normal tissues is poorly understood. It is thought that cancer is initiated when cells acquire a minimum compendium of genetic alterations needed to trigger tumour formation. Understanding when such initiating mutations occur in normal cells is crucial for enabling reconstruction of the early events that lead to cancer. Yokoyama et al.1, writing in Nature, and Martincorena et al.2, writing in Science, have analysed the extent of mutations in human epithelial tissue from the healthy oesophagus, and how this relates to the processes that drive cancer development.

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Nature 565, 301-303 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07737-8

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