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Order in which cancer-driving mutations occur affects the chance of tumour development

What happens to the thousands of intestinal cells that have tumour-initiating DNA mutations? A study in mouse models shows that most are eliminated by strong negative selection, but those that survive create a more-permissive environment for subsequent mutations, opening up routes for cancer to develop.

This is a summary of: Lourenço, F. C. et al. Decay of driver mutations shapes the landscape of intestinal transformation. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09762-w (2025).

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03748-4

‘Expert opinion’ and the figure are published under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

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