Human cancers express mutator phenotypes: Origin, consequences and targeting

Abstract

Recent data on DNA sequencing of human tumours have established that cancer cells contain thousands of mutations. These data support the concept that cancer cells express a mutator phenotype. This Perspective considers the evidence supporting the mutator phenotype hypothesis, the origin and consequences of a mutator phenotype, the implications for personalized medicine and the feasibility of ablating tumours by error catastrophe. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved.