Spontaneous, replication-induced DNA breaks are likely to be a primary source of chromosomal rearrangements typical of cancer, but it is unknown how often these breaks occur in normal cells. A new study suggests that they are exceedingly rare but probably up to 100-fold more potent in causing genome instability than previously estimated.
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Bielinsky, AK. Scarce but scary. Nat Genet 39, 707–708 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0607-707
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ng0607-707
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