DNA repair mutations act as a switch for bowel cancer

University College LondonJul 5 2024 Bowel cancer cells have the ability to regulate their growth using a genetic on-off switch to maximize their chances of survival, a phenomenon that's been observed for the first time by researchers at UCL and University Medical Center Utrecht.

Cancer is a genetic disease caused by mutations in our DNA. DNA damage occurs throughout life, both naturally and due to environmental factors. To cope with this, cells have evolved strategies to protect the integrity of the genetic code, but if mutations accumulate in key genes linked to cancer, tumors can develop.

We predicted that understanding how tumors exploit faulty DNA repair to drive tumor growth – whilst simultaneously avoiding immune detection – might help explain why the immune system sometimes fails to control cancer development." In this study, researchers from UCL analyzed whole genome sequences from 217 MMRd bowel cancer samples in the 100,000 Genomes Project database. They looked for links between the total number of mutations and genetic changes in key DNA repair genes.

"The really interesting finding from our research is what happens afterwards. It seems the cancer turns the DNA repair switch back on to protect the parts of the genome that they too need to survive and to avoid attracting the attention of the immune system. This is the first time that we've seen a mutation that can be created and repaired over and over again, adding it or deleting it from the cancer's genetic code as required.

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