英国科学家找到了“急性癌症”的形成原因：细胞内的染色体发生“爆炸”破坏了DNA，从而让人有可能在短时间内患上癌症。相关论文发表于Cell。

传统理论认为癌症是人体经历成千上万次的细胞突变后，慢慢演化的结果。但英国著名的疾病研究机构桑格研究所的新发现推翻了这种看法。这暗示了不管人们怎么努力保持身体健康，也不能保证命运不会拿他们开玩笑。同时还说明了为什么有些人在体检时根本没发现癌症痕迹，但数月后突然就被诊断患上这种疾病了。

桑格学院的科学家是通过研究750个肿瘤的遗传缺陷后得出以上结论的。其中大部分的案例都与传统理论相符，染色体的损坏是常年累积的结果。然而，其中至少有1/40的肿瘤不符合“标准模式”，有的染色体似乎是在一夜之间遭到破坏的。

参与此项研究的坎贝尔博士称：“测验结果太让我们惊讶了。在一个细胞里面，染色体经过一次或者是多次爆炸成为碎片。如果这个细胞开始笨拙地修补，把碎片杂乱的缝合起来，这样就破坏了原来的DNA结构，为癌症的快速形成提供了条件。”

坎贝尔博士表示：“这个细胞应该说‘好吧，我放弃’，而不是像对待昂贵的瓷器一样，把染色体拼接回去。细胞试图修复一个不可修复的东西，最后造出一个灾难性的、能让癌症更快形成的基因组。”

这种“急性癌症”在骨癌里面特别常见，大概1/4的患者身上都能看到明显的染色体受损特征模式。科学家目前还不能肯定是什么引起了这种染色体“爆炸”，但有嫌疑的罪魁祸首包括X光和晒伤。坎贝尔博士称：“如果我们能了解根本的病因，或许就可以防止患上这种癌症。”

推荐原文出处：

Cell  doi:10.1016/j.cell.2010.11.055

Massive Genomic Rearrangement Acquired in a Single Catastrophic Event during Cancer Development

Philip J. Stephens, Chris D. Greenman, Beiyuan Fu, Fengtang Yang, Graham R. Bignell, Laura J. Mudie, Erin D. Pleasance, King Wai Lau, David Beare, Lucy A. Stebbings, Stuart McLaren, Meng-Lay Lin, David J. McBride, Ignacio Varela, Serena Nik-Zainal, Catherine Leroy, Mingming Jia, Andrew Menzies, Adam P. Butler, Jon W. Teague, Michael A. Quail, John Burton, Harold Swerdlow, Nigel P. Carter, Laura A. Morsberger, Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, George A. Follows, Anthony R. Green, Adrienne M. Flanagan, Michael R. Stratton, P. Andrew Futreal, Peter J. Campbell

Highlights

2%–3% cancers show 10–100 s of rearrangements localized to specific genomic regions

Genomic features imply chromosome breaks occur in one-off crisis (“chromothripsis”)

Found across all tumor types, especially common in bone cancers (up to 25%)

Can generate several genomic lesions with potential to drive cancer in single event

Summary

Cancer is driven by somatically acquired point mutations and chromosomal rearrangements, conventionally thought to accumulate gradually over time. Using next-generation sequencing, we characterize a phenomenon, which we term chromothripsis, whereby tens to hundreds of genomic rearrangements occur in a one-off cellular crisis. Rearrangements involving one or a few chromosomes crisscross back and forth across involved regions, generating frequent oscillations between two copy number states. These genomic hallmarks are highly improbable if rearrangements accumulate over time and instead imply that nearly all occur during a single cellular catastrophe. The stamp of chromothripsis can be seen in at least 2%–3% of all cancers, across many subtypes, and is present in ～25% of bone cancers. We find that one, or indeed more than one, cancer-causing lesion can emerge out of the genomic crisis. This phenomenon has important implications for the origins of genomic remodeling and temporal emergence of cancer.

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