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Kamila Naxerova: Quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in cancer
Feb 7, 2025, 13:16

Kamila Naxerova: Quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in cancer

Kamila Naxerova, Investigator at the Center for Systems Biology, Mass General Research Institute, shared on X:

Cancer evolution enthusiasts – you might be interested in some new data from our lab on quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in colorectal and lung cancer, published today in Nature Genetics!

Using replication slippage mutations, we quantify the number of cell divisions that typical CRCs undergo on the way to tumor initiation, diversification and metastasis divergence. It’s a lot of divisions!

Primary CRCs diversify early in cell division time and distant metastases diverge significantly later, ~500 divisions removed from the MRCA. In >90% of patients, distant (but not lymph node!) mets diverge well after the primary tumor has diversified.

Kamila Naxerova: Quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in cancer

Subclonal expansions characterized by excess divisions are the source of distant (but not lymph node!) metastases. This is very interesting and a similar phenomenon was recently described by TRACERx

Kamila Naxerova: Quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in cancer

The cell division burden of the MRCA of two lung cancers can distinguish between independent primaries and intrapulmonary metastases

Kamila Naxerova: Quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in cancer

Lung cancer lineages with metastatic capacity have undergone more divisions than non-metastatic lineages – just like in CRC. So interesting!”

Kamila Naxerova: Quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in cancer

Quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in cancer | Nature Genetics

Authors: Martin Blohmer, David M. Cheek, Wei-Ting Hung, Maria Kessler, Foivos Chatzidimitriou, Jiahe Wang, William Hung, I-Hsiu Lee, Alexander N. Gorelick, Emma CE Wassenaar, Ching-Yeuh Yang, Yi-Chen Yeh, Hsiang-Ling Ho, Dorothee Speiser, Maria M. Karsten, Michael Lanuti, Sara I. Pai, Onno Kranenburg, Jochen K. Lennerz, Teh-Ying Chou, Matthias Kloor and Kamila Naxerova

Kamila Naxerova: Quantifying cell divisions along evolutionary lineages in cancer