Mini chromosomes that strengthen tumors
Cancers are due to genetic aberrations in certain cells that gain the ability to divide indefinitely. This proliferation of sick cells generates tumors, which gradually invade healthy tissue. Therefore, current therapies essentially seek to destroy cancer cells to stop their proliferation. Through high-throughput genetic sequencing of glioblastoma cells, one of the most deadly brain tumors, a team of geneticists from the University of Geneva's (UNIGE) Faculty of Medicine discovered that some of these mutations are caused by supplemental extrachromosomal DNA fragments, called double minutes, which enable cancer cells to better adapt to their environment and therefore better resist to treatments meant to destroy them. Read more in Nature Communications.