Study offers hope of treating aggressive cancer by eliminating rogue DNA

A breakthrough in understanding how and why some cancers are particularly aggressive and resistant to treatment has been blamed on broken strands of rogue DNA. This discovery is associated with several documented forms of cancer, including breast, lung and brain cancer, and also offers hope for identifying and treating these tumors in future patients.

At the center of the discovery is extrachromosomal DNA (ecDNA), a rare phenomenon in which fragments of DNA break off from chromosomes and float around inside the cell nucleus. A series of papers published by researchers in the US and UK found that this type of DNA is present in tumor cells of aggressive and treatment-resistant cancers because they contain cancer-causing and immune-suppressing genes and are chaotic in nature. replication promotes tumor growth.

“This is not just a discovery of what can make cancer so bad, it actually points the way to a new set of treatments,” says Paul Michel, professor of pathology at Stanford University. “There is a path to developing new treatments because this type of DNA is different and creates different vulnerabilities.”

The good news is that drugs called CHK1 inhibitors destroy cfDNA-containing tumor cells in mice when used along with traditional cancer drugs. David Scott, director of Cancer Grand Challenges at Cancer Research UK, says: “By targeting ctDNA, we could cut the lifeline of these unforgiving tumors, turning a terrible prognosis into a treatable one.” This discovery opens the door to new cancer treatments by identifying specific vulnerabilities associated with cfDNA.