The disappearing Barr body in breast and ovarian cancers - PubMed (original) (raw)

Review

doi: 10.1038/nrc2172. Epub 2007 Jul 5.

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Review

The disappearing Barr body in breast and ovarian cancers

Gayle J Pageau et al. Nat Rev Cancer. 2007 Aug.

Abstract

Interest has recently reawakened in whether loss of the heterochromatic X chromosome (Barr body) is prevalent in certain breast and ovarian cancers, and new insights into the mechanisms involved have emerged. Mitotic segregation errors commonly explain the loss of the inactive X chromosome (Xi), but compromise of Xi heterochromatin in some cancers may signal broader deficits of nuclear heterochromatin. The debated link between BRCA1 and Xi might reflect a general relationship between BRCA1 and heterochromatin, which could connect BRCA1 to both epigenetic and genetic instability. We suggest that heterochromatic instability is a common but largely unexplored mechanism, leading to widespread genomic misregulation and the evolution of some cancers.

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