Seeing cancer in three dimensions
One of the hallmarks of cancer cells is that certain regions of their DNA tend to get duplicated many times, while others are deleted. Often those genetic alterations help the cells become more malignant — making them better able to grow and spread throughout the body.Now, a team of MIT and Harvard University researchers has found that the three-dimensional structure of the cell’s genetic material, or genome, plays a large role in determining which sections of DNA are most likely to be altered in cancerous cells. The researchers, led by Leonid Mirny, an associate professor of physics and health sciences and technology, developed a technique to compare the 3-D architecture of chromatin to the chromosomal aberrations often seen in cancer. In the new study, they showed that any two points that routinely encounter each other are more likely to form the end of a DNA loop that gets cut out...