Cancer May Be Driven by extrachromosomal DNA

Good news! Very recommendable! Cancer is history! Every day we learn more about this disease! This research could be a major breakthrough! Following long and well written article is actually authored by a subject matter expert and cancer researcher!

"... This work revealed the presence of [extrachromosomal DNA] ecDNA in almost every cancer type we looked at. We further found that ecDNA enabled cancers to change their genomes quickly, and even to move genes back onto chromosomes, but not in their original locations. ...

We first demonstrated that ecDNA is circular. These ecDNAs differ from the more common small extrachromosomal circular DNA particles (eccDNAs) that are found in the genomes of eukaryotes from yeast to flies to humans. For one, eccDNAs average only about 100–1,000 base pairs in length and are thus relatively unlikely to contain intact genes or other functional elements, while ecDNAs are relatively large, averaging around 1.3 million base pairs. ecDNAs are chock-full of growth-promoting oncogenes, and they contain other genes and regulatory regions that may be involved in tumor formation and progression. 

Moreover, unlike other types of small circular DNAs such as eccDNAs and ribosomal DNAs that can be found in normal cells at low levels, ecDNAs are unique to cancer, and they are highly amplified. ..."

Cancer May Be Driven by DNA Outside of Chromsomes | The Scientist Magazine® In the last decade, researchers have come to realize that tumors harbor bits of extrachromosomal DNA that can drive malignancy.