Somatic recombination in adult tissues: What is there to learn?
Somatic recombination is essential to protect genomes of somatic cells from DNA damage but it also has important clinical implications, as it is a driving force of tumorigenesis leading to inactivation of tumor suppressor genes. Despite this importance, our knowledge about somatic recombination in adult tissues remains very limited. Our recent work, using the Drosophila adult midgut has demonstrated that spontaneous events of mitotic recombination accumulate in aging adult intestinal stem cells and result in frequent loss of heterozygosity (LOH). In this Extra View article, we provide further data supporting long-track chromosome LOH and discuss potential mechanisms involved in the process. In addition, we further discuss relevant questions surrounding somatic recombination and how the mechanisms and factors influencing somatic recombination in adult tissues can be explored using the Drosophila midgut model.
a Institut Curie, PSL Research University, CNRS UMR 3215, INSERM U934, Stem Cells and Tissue Homeostasis group , Paris , France , Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 6 , Paris , France.
Katarzyna
K
Siudeja
a Institut Curie, PSL Research University, CNRS UMR 3215, INSERM U934, Stem Cells and Tissue Homeostasis group , Paris , France , Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 6 , Paris , France.
Allison J
AJ
Bardin
D053687:Adult Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D000818:Animals; D060965:Clonal Evolution; D004330:Drosophila / Q000166:cytology*; D007422:Intestines / Q000166:cytology; D019656:Loss of Heterozygosity; D008938:Mitosis; D023421:Models, Animal; D011995:Recombination, Genetic
LOH; drosophila; intestinal stem cells; mitotic recombination; somatic mutation