Cancer cells with extra chromosomes depend on those chromosomes for tumour growth, a new study conducted by Yale University has found.The study was published on June 6 in the top scientific academic journal Science.According to the findings of the study, researchers said that a new cancer therapy technique can be developed that selectively targets the extra chromosomes.Human cells normally have 23 pairs of chromosomes extra-chromosomes are an anomaly known as aneuploidy. Cells which exhibit this anomalous behaviour are known as aneuploid cells.Jason Sheltzer, assistant professor at the Yale School of Medicine and the senior author of the study, explained the findings of the study.In the 19th century, pathologists observing cancer cells under a microscope noticed that they frequently underwent weird mitoses. The chromosome bodies visible in these cells were not equally divided between daughter nuclei – in other words, they were aneuploid. pic.twitter.com/RvKDeedztd— Jason Sheltzer (@JSheltzer) July 6, 2023“If you look at normal skin or normal lung tissue, for example, 99.9% of the cells will have the right number of chromosomes,” Professor Sheltzer said. “But weve known for over 100 years that nearly all cancers are aneuploid.”However, it was unclear what role the extra chromosomes played in cancer – whether they caused cancer, or were simply a symptom.“For a long time, we could observe aneuploidy but not manipulate it. We just didnt have the right tools,” said Sheltzer, who is also a researcher at the Yale Cancer Center. “But in this study, we used the gene-engineering technique CRISPR to develop a new approach to eliminate entire chromosomes from cancer cells, which is an important technical advance. Being able to manipulate aneuploid chromosomes in this way will lead to a greater understanding of how they function.”Extra chromosomes in cancer cells observed 100 years ago new study cracks itThe phenomenon of extra chromosomes in cancer cells was first observed in the early 1900s, when scientists noticed that as cancer cells multiplied, some of them ended up with extra chromosomes, and some ended up with too few.This observation led German embryologist Theodor Boveri to conclude that “chromosomal (genomic) instability [was] a key hallmark of cancer”.The new Yale study has confirmed Boveris predictions and has further demonstrated that removing the extra chromosomes can prevent cancer cells from multiplying.“When we eliminated aneuploidy from the genomes of these cancer cells, it compromised the malignant potential of those cells and they lost their ability to form tumours,” Sheltzer said.
