A broken chromosome is like an unmoored beansprout circling in search of attachment. If a cell tries to replicate itself with broken chromosomes, the cell will be killed and so it would very much like to find its lost end. Often, it finds a workable substitute: another nearby chromosome. When a broken chromosome attaches to another, or when chromosomes use a similar process to exchange genetic material, you have a translocation -- genes end up fused to other genes, encoding a new protein they shouldn’t. A recent University of Colorado Cancer Center review in the journal Frontiers of Medicine shows that you also frequently have the cause of cancer -- and in some cases its cure.
