Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Seeds of cancer in normal skin

Sequencing the genomes of individual skin cells called melanocytes has revealed a rich landscape of DNA changes. These insights shed light on the origins of melanoma, an aggressive type of cancer.
  1. Inigo Martincorena

    1. Inigo Martincorena is at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton CB10 1SA, UK.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Mutations occur in our cells throughout life. Although most mutations are harmless, they accumulate in number in our tissues as we age, and if they arise in key genes, they can alter cellular behaviour and set cells on a path towards cancer. There is also speculation that somatic mutations (those in non-reproductive tissues) might contribute to ageing and to diseases unrelated to cancer. However, technical difficulties in detecting the mutations present in a small number of cells, or even in single cells, have hampered research and limited progress in understanding the first steps in cancer development and the impact of somatic mutation on ageing and disease. Writing in Nature, Tang et al.1 report work that overcame some of these experimental limitations to explore somatic mutations and selection in individual melanocytes — the type of skin cell that can give rise to the cancer melanoma.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Nature 586, 504-506 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02749-9

References

  1. Tang, J. et al. Nature 586, 600–605 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Martincorena, I. et al. Science 348, 880–886 (2015).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. McGrath, J. A. Eady, R. A. J. & Pope, F. M. in Rook’s Textbook of Dermatology (eds Burns, T., Breathnach, S., Cox, N. & Griffiths, C.) Ch. 3 (Blackwell, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Lodato, M. A. et al. Science 348, 880–886 (2015).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Welch, J. S. et al. Cell 150, 264–278 (2012).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Blokzijl, F. et al. Nature 538, 260–264 (2016).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Yoshida, K. et al. Nature 578, 266–272 (2020).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Jaiswal, S. et al. N. Eng. J. Med. 371, 2488–2498 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Kennedy, S. R., Zhang, Y. & Risques, R. A. Trends Cancer 5, 531–540 (2019).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Huang, F. W. et al. Science 339, 957–959 (2013).

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links