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Broken chromosomes don't stay home: Tunneling nanotubes carry damaged DNA between human cells
Francesca Palese1, Chiara Zurzolo1
1Membrane Traffic and Pathogenesis, CNRS UMR 3691, Institut Pasteur, F75015 Paris, France.
Molecular Cell
|August 6, 2026
Abstract:
In a recent Cell paper, Maurais et al.1 show that genomic instability drives human cells to transfer fragmented chromosomes to neighbors via tunneling nanotubes (TNTs), with heritable functional consequences, raising fundamental questions about intercellular communication, genome surveillance, and cancer evolution.
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