ArticlePloS one2013
A Melanoma Brain Metastasis with a Donor-Patient Hybrid Genome following Bone Marrow Transplantation: First Evidence for Fusion in Human Cancer.
Article in PloS one, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 83 papers.
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Who cites it
83 citing papers in PubMed, 118 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploratory Analyses of Circulating Neoplastic-Immune Hybrid Cells as Prognostic Biomarkers in Advanced Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Trial
- Implications of Heterotypic Cell Fusion in Cancer.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- A Brief Introduction into the Biological Phenomenon of Cell-Cell Fusion.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- How Do Cancer Cells Fuse and Why?Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Mapping fusion-driven cell reprogramming through integrative single-cell computational frameworks.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2025Article
- Glioma cells achieve malignant progression by fusion with macrophages to gain high SLC7A5 expression.Journal of neuro-oncology · 2025Article
- Metabolic reprogramming and functional crosstalk within the tumor microenvironment (TME) and A Multi-omics anticancer approach.Medical oncology (Northwood, London, England) · 2025Review
- Simultaneous expression of epithelial and immune cell markers in circulating tumor cells identified in patients with stage 4 breast cancer.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- Horizontal transfer of nuclear DNA in transmissible cancer.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Exosomes as key mediators in immune and cancer cell interactions: insights in melanoma progression and therapy.Archives of dermatological research · 2025Review
- The tumor microenvironment: adding pieces to the puzzle.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Monocyte-cancer cell fusion is mediated by phosphatidylserine-CD36 receptor interaction and induced by ionizing radiation.PloS one · 2025Article
- Cell fusion as a driver of metastasis: re-evaluating an old hypothesis in the age of cancer heterogeneity.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Cancer-associated macrophage-like cells as a prognostic biomarker in solid tumors.The journal of liquid biopsy · 2024Review
- How Much Do You Fuse? A Comparison of Cell Fusion Assays in a Breast Cancer Model.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Quantitative image analysis pipeline for detecting circulating hybrid cells in immunofluorescence images with human-level accuracy.Cytometry. Part A : the journal of the International Society for Analytical Cytology · 2024Article
- Somatic Cell Fusion in Host Defense and Adaptation.Results and problems in cell differentiation · 2024Article
- The Hallmarks of Circulating Hybrid Cells.Results and problems in cell differentiation · 2024Review
- Cell Fusion and Syncytia Formation in Cancer.Results and problems in cell differentiation · 2024Review
- Synthetic circuits based on split Cas9 to detect cellular events.Scientific reports · 2023Article
23 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundTumor cell fusion with motile bone marrow-derived cells (BMDCs) has long been posited as a mechanism for cancer metastasis. While there is much support for this from cell culture and animal studies, it has yet to be confirmed in human cancer, as tumor and marrow-derived cells from the same patient cannot be easily distinguished genetically.
methodsWe carried out genotyping of a metastatic melanoma to the brain that arose following allogeneic bone-marrow transplantation (BMT), using forensic short tandem repeat (STR) length-polymorphisms to distinguish donor and patient genomes. Tumor cells were isolated free of leucocytes by laser microdissection, and tumor and pre-transplant blood lymphocyte DNAs were analyzed for donor and patient alleles at 14 autosomal STR loci and the sex chromosomes.
resultsAll alleles in the donor and patient pre-BMT lymphocytes were found in tumor cells. The alleles showed disproportionate relative abundances in similar patterns throughout the tumor, indicating the tumor was initiated by a clonal fusion event.
conclusionsOur results strongly support fusion between a BMDC and a tumor cell playing a role in the origin of this metastasis. Depending on the frequency of such events, the findings could have important implications for understanding the generation of metastases, including the origins of tumor initiating cells and the cancer epigenome.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.