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Profiling oncogenic extra-chromosomal DNA in cancer

Cancer cells frequently amplify oncogenes on DNA molecules outside of chromosomes — extrachromosomal DNA. A technique adapted for isolation of extrachromosomal DNA, termed CRISPR-CATCH, enables analyses of its genetic and epigenetic compositions, which provides insights into its origin, structural diversity and mechanism of oncogene activation in cancer.

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Fig. 1: Profiling ecDNA in cancer cells by CRISPR-CATCH.

References

  1. Turner, K. M. et al. Extrachromosomal oncogene amplification drives tumour evolution and genetic heterogeneity. Nature 543, 122–125 (2017). This paper systematically analyses human cancer models to identify ecDNAs and their effects on oncogene expression.

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This is a summary of: Chang, H. Y. et al. Targeted profiling of human extrachromosomal DNA by CRISPR-CATCH. Nat. Genet. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-022-01190-0 (2022).

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Profiling oncogenic extra-chromosomal DNA in cancer. Nat Genet 54, 1591–1592 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-022-01193-x

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