To understand chromosome reshuffling, look to the genome's 3D structure
That our chromosomes can break and reshuffle pieces of themselves is nothing new; scientists have recognized this for decades, especially in cancer cells. The rules for where chromosomes are likely to break and how the broken pieces come together are only just now starting to come into view. Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and the Immune Disease Institute (IDI) have helped bring those rules into clearer focus by discovering that where each of the genome's thousands of genes lie within the cell's nucleus essentially, the genome's three-dimensional organization holds great influence over where broken chromosome ends rejoin, knowledge that could shed light on fundamental processes related to cancer and normal cellular functions, for example in immunity.