Washington, Dec 08: A chromosome abnormality called aneuploidy can cause cancer, US researchers said in a study published, confirming what scientists have long suspected.
With virtually all human cancers having an abnormal number of chromosomes, scientists have “long suspected that gene mutations which promote erroneous chromosome separation during cell division are to blame for tumor development,” researchers at the Mayo Clinic said in a statement.
“By using a combination of new and established mouse models for human cancer, we were able to prove that aneuploidy causes cancer and elucidate the mechanism by which it does so,” said Mayo Clinic cancer biologist and senior author of the study, Jan van Deursen.
In tests on mice, the researchers found that a cell was less able to suppress tumors if there was incomplete mitosis — the term for the division of a chromosome — that resulting in misalignment or missegregation, when a cell is missing a chromosome.
“The cell loses the ability to suppress tumors, which is part of the immune system,” said Mayo Clinic spokeswman Bob Nellis.
“It’s like losing the anti-viral software on your computer,” Mayo Clinic spokesman Bob Nellis told said.
–Agencies