Cancer treatments for targeting tumor amplifications lag behind those targeting point mutations – and part of the reason may be that amplifications often reside on extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA). Since ecDNA was first described back in 1965 as minute chromatin bodies in brain cancer cells, the use of large-scale DNA sequencing techniques has revealed the presence of ecDNA across a wide range of cancer types. “The circular structure of ecDNA is associated with increased proto-oncogenic capacity in comparison to linear amplifications. Another key feature is that ecDNA does not contain centromeres,” Roel Verhaak, from Yale School of Medicine, told the audience in a session at the 2023 AACR-NCI-EORTC Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Boston.
According to researchers working to develop a cure for brain cancer, the deadliest type of the disease returns because tumours adapt to therapy by recruiting he
The deadliest form of brain cancer returns because tumors adapt to treatment by recruiting help from nearby healthy tissue, say researchers who are trying to find a cure for the disease.
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Ionizing radiation is used for treating nearly half of all cancer patients. Radiotherapy works by damaging the DNA of cancer cells, and cells sustaining so much DNA damage that they cannot sufficiently repair it will soon cease to replicate and die. It s an effective strategy overall, and radiotherapy is a common frontline cancer treatment option. Unfortunately, many cancers have subsets of cells that are able to survive initial radiotherapeutic regimens by developing mechanisms that are able to repair the DNA damage. This often results in resistance to further radiation as cancerous growth recurs. But until recently, little was known about exactly what happens in the genomes of cancer cells following radiotherapy.