Pushed out of a tough crowd: centrosome aberrations promote invasiveness

Abstract

Centrosome defects are observed in a broad array of solid and liquid tumors and are associated with advanced disease and poor patient prognosis. Unexpectedly, centrosome aberrations are present in only a subset of cells within a tumor and are poorly tolerated in non-transformed cells, raising the conundrum of why centrosome aberrations are maintained during tumor evolution. New work by Ganier et al published in The EMBO Journal shows that centrosome defects can func- tion in a non-cell-autonomous manner to force mitotic cells out of an epithelium, providing a plausible mechanism to promote dissemination of metastatic cells.