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Circular DNA exposes a weakness in cancer cells
Nikolaus A. Watson is in the Genome Biology Unit at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany.
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Jan O. Korbel is in the Genome Biology Unit at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany, and in the Bridging Research Division on Mechanisms of Genomic Variation and Data Science at the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
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Cancer genomes are always changing. The genetic alterations that initiate and promote tumour growth can create conditions for genome evolution1, which enables cancer cells to acquire properties over time through a phenomenon known as genomic instability. Understanding what enables such evolutionary flexibility is central to explaining how tumour cells adapt. It could also inform the development of cancer treatments. Writing in Nature, Billing et al.2 examine a form of genetic material that often arises in genomically unstable tumours: circular, non-chromosomal DNA known as extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA)3.
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Wu, S., Bafna, V., Chang, H. Y. & Mischel, P. S. Annu. Rev. Pathol. Mech. Dis. 17, 367–386 (2022).