by Dr. Stephen Pelsue
Fri, Oct 17th, 2025 11:48 am
It seems like cancer cells are always one step ahead of us. In many cases whatever we throw at them, they can adapt and survive. Don’t get me wrong, we have made tremendous progress in targeting specific cancer cells and holding the disease at bay, but in some cases, the ability of the cancer cells to mutate and dodge everything that we have in our arsenal is both admirable and frustrating.
Our understanding of cancer development and progression has been able to define several mutations and genetic alterations that can promote this behavior through two separate opposite actions:
As cancer cells mature, they often accumulate more mutations that make them even more insidious and harder to control but understanding the mechanisms behind this has been lacking.
A recent study has shed some light on one way that cancer cells are able to adapt and resist treatments. Extra chromosomal DNA has been found to accumulate in advanced and aggressive tumors. It turns out that in many cases, these circular fragments of DNA, that are not part of the normal chromosomal compartment, contain genetic elements that assist in the survival of the cancer cells. They are known to carry
Sometimes the extrachromosomal DNA will have dozens of copies of these cancer genes, which make them very difficult to target and kill. The more advanced the cancer is, the more extrachromosomal DNA they are likely to carry, which indicates that it accumulates over time. There is also tremendous variation within a cancer cell population, making it very difficult to target.
These recent findings have highlighted an area of research that needs immediate attention, as well as a method for better characterizing tumors. Perhaps the more that we understand the cancer playbook, the more likely we are to be able to disrupt its strategy and stop cancer in its tracks.