Explosion in the Genome causes brain tumors

A mutation in the gene for the protein p53, the “guardian of the genome”, leads to an explosive rearrangement of large parts of the DNA in cancer cells. This discovery in a highly aggressive group of brain tumors in children was made by Heidelberg scientists within a study funded inter alia by the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and the National Genome Research Network (NGFN-Plus). The chromosome explosion causes an increased transformation intocancer cells. Testing the patients for hereditary p53 mutations could therefore result in detecting possible tumors in an early and better treatable stage.

Publikation
Rausch et al.: Genome sequencing of pediatric medulloblastoma links catastrophic DNA rearrangements with TP53 mutations in cancer.
Cell, January 19, 2012, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.12.013.