Dangerous Relationship

Cancer is a disease of many varied faces, but two characteristics common to the development of many cases are senescence – when cells stop growing and dividing, linked to ageing; and chromosomal instability – when a cell’s paired packages of DNA unevenly replicate or falter, leaving an imbalance. A new study has revealed a link between the two. Cells with unbalanced chromosome numbers accumulate excessive mitochondria (cell components coloured green in the fruit fly wing section pictured), which cause stress and trigger senescence. Senescence halts the natural cell cycle, preventing further growth and sending out an alarm call to the immune system for elimination. If not dealt with promptly, their presence can prompt abnormal nearby growth, leading to cancer. Reducing the excess mitochondria could decrease the number of senescent cells, and hence counter the negative impact of chromosomal instability, so is a potential target for new treatments.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Jery Joy and colleagues
• Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, Barcelona, Spain
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Research published in Developmental Cell, July 2021