Origins and Consequences of Chromosomal Instability: From Cellular Adaptation to Genome Chaos-Mediated System Survival

Abstract

When discussing chromosomal instability, most of the literature focuses on the characterization of individual molecular mechanisms. These studies search for genomic and environmental causes and consequences of chromosomal instability in cancer, aiming to identify key triggering factors useful to control chromosomal instability and apply this knowledge in the clinic. Since cancer is a phenomenon of new system emergence from normal tissue driven by somatic evolution, such studies should be done in the context of new genome system emergence during evolution. In this perspective, both the origin and key outcome of chromosomal instability are examined using the genome theory of cancer evolution. Specifically, chromosomal instability was linked to a spectrum of genomic and non-genomic variants, from epigenetic alterations to drastic genome chaos. These highly diverse factors were then unified by the evolutionary mechanism of cancer. Following identification of the hidden link between cellular adaptation (positive and essential) and its trade-off (unavoidable and negative) of chromosomal instability, why chromosomal instability is the main player in the macro-cellular evolution of cancer is briefly discussed. Finally, new research directions are suggested, including searching for a common mechanism of evolutionary phase transition, establishing chromosomal instability as an evolutionary biomarker, validating the new two-phase evolutionary model of cancer, and applying such a model to improve clinical outcomes and to understand the genome-defined mechanism of organismal evolution.

Keywords: chromosome instability (CIN); fuzzy inheritance; genome theory; karyotype coding; two phases of cancer evolution.

Figure 1

An illustration of the molecular mechanisms and their relationship with stress, genomic system response, macro- and micro-evolution, and genomic/environmental constraints. In the column of “Stresses”, each item, such as cell cycle control, could involve hundreds of gene mutations, and each mutation can represent a specific molecular mechanism. In the column “Heterogeneity”, different types of stress response can again involve vast amounts of different genomic and non-genomic factors or mechanisms. The types of genetic and non-genomic variations also include indels, duplications, and mobile elements [42]. Thus, the trigger factors are too numerous to handle. The key for cancer evolution can be understood as two main steps as soon as evolution is initiated: genome alteration-based macro-evolution followed by cancer gene mutations/epigenetic-based micro-evolution.