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Unstable genomes promote inflammation

Faulty DNA replication can make genomes unstable. It now seems that, in mice, severe disruption of DNA replication triggers inflammation in the placenta, and female embryos are more sensitive to this than are male ones.
  1. Sarah Lambert

    1. Sarah Lambert is in the Department of Genotoxic Stress and Cancer, Institut Curie-CNRS, Orsay 91405, France.

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The development of an embryo requires thousands of rapid cell divisions, during each of which the entire genome is replicated. Perturbations in the process of DNA replication can generate an unstable genome. Writing in Nature, McNairn et al.1 reveal that, in mice, genomic instability caused by defective DNA replication during embryonic development triggers an inflammatory response that preferentially kills female embryos. This sex-biased embryonic death is caused by the inability of female embryos to produce testosterone, an anti-inflammatory hormone. The authors’ findings have implications for cancer biology.

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Nature 567, 41-42 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00510-5

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