Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Genomic instability is a hallmark of breast and other solid cancers. Presumably caused by critical telomere reduction, GI is responsible for providing the genetic diversity required in the multi-step progression of the disease. We have used multicolor fluorescence in situ hybridization and 3D image analysis to quantify genomic instability cell-by-cell in thick, intact tissue sections of normal breast epithelium, preneoplastic lesions (usual ductal hyperplasia), ductal carcinona is situ or invasive carcinoma of the breast. Our in situ-cell by cell-analysis of genomic instability shows an important increase of genomic instability in the transition from hyperplasia to in situ carcinoma, followed by a reduction of instability in invasive carcinoma. This pattern suggests that the transition from hyperplasia to in situ carcinoma corresponds to telomere crisis and invasive carcinoma is a consequence of telomerase reactivation afertelomere crisis.