When a cell divides, it needs to copy its entire genome accurately and make sure each of the two new daughter When a cell divides, it needs to copy its entire genome accurately and make sure each of the two new daughter cells receives a complete set of chromosomes. But cells can make mistakes, and bits of chromosomes can get swapped around, lost, or copied too often. This genetic chaos is called Chromosomal Instability. If there is too much chromosomal instability in a cell, signals by DNA-checking proteins cause the cell to self-destruct. But cancer cells seem to be able to accumulate chromosomal instability without self-destructing. This leads to a lot of genetic diversity in a tumour, making them hard to treat.

New research from Prof. Charles Swanton at the Francis Crick Institute and University College London sheds light on a number of ways cells can cope with this chromosomal instability. They have uncovered new cellular signalling pathways through which cancer cells can bypass the DNA-checking proteins that would otherwise cause the cell to self-destruct. They have also found that cancer cells take longer to divide than healthy cells, which gives them more time to fix the worst errors.

This means that cancer cells are constantly balancing the amount of chromosomal instability. If there isn't a lot of genetic chaos, the cancer is easier to treat, and if there's too much chaos, the cancer cells are too damaged to divide. Tumour evolution selects for the right amount of chromosomal instability that allows a tumour to keep growing.
But if we can upset the balance to either extreme, we might make a tumour more vulnerable to treatment.

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