Cancer genomes evolve by pulverizing single chromosomes

Matthew Meyerson; David Pellman

doi:10.1016/j.cell.2010.12.025

Cancer genomes evolve by pulverizing single chromosomes

Cell. 2011 Jan 7;144(1):9-10. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2010.12.025.

Authors

Matthew Meyerson¹, David Pellman

Affiliation

¹ Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115, USA. matthew_meyerson@dfci.harvard.edu

PMID: 21215363
DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2010.12.025

Abstract

A report in this issue describes "chromothripsis," a new mechanism for genetic instability in cancer cells. Chromothripsis appears to be a cataclysmic event in which a single chromosome is fragmented and then reassembled. The phenomenon raises important questions of how chromosome rearrangements can be confined to defined genome segments.

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