Spatiotemporal dynamics of clonal selection and diversification in normal endometrial epithelium
Open accessAbstract
It has become evident that somatic mutations in cancer-associated genes accumulate in the normal endometrium, but spatiotemporal understanding of the evolution and expansion of mutant clones is limited. To elucidate the timing and mechanism of the clonal expansion of somatic mutations in cancer-associated genes in the normal endometrium, we sequence 1311 endometrial glands from 37 women. By collecting endometrial glands from different parts of the endometrium, we show that multiple glands with the same somatic mutations occupy substantial areas of the endometrium. We demonstrate that “rhizome structures”, in which the basal glands run horizontally along the muscular layer and multiple vertical glands rise from the basal gland, originate from the same ancestral clone. Moreover, mutant clones detected in the vertical glands diversify by acquiring additional mutations. These results suggest that clonal expansions through the rhizome structures are involved in the mechanism by which mutant clones extend their territories. Furthermore, we show clonal expansions and copy neutral loss-of-heterozygosity events occur early in life, suggesting such events can be tolerated many years in the normal endometrium. Our results of the evolutionary dynamics of mutant clones in the human endometrium will lead to a better understanding of the mechanisms of endometrial regeneration during the menstrual cycle and the development of therapies for the prevention and treatment of endometrium-related diseases.
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The toolkit has a significant advantage to generate isogenic models of novel mutations in early tumorigenesis.
“Taken together, these results demonstrate the significant advantage the toolkit we have developed in this study has to generate isogenic models of novel mutations in early tumorigenesis48,50–52.”
From One-step generation of tumor models by base editor multiplexing in adult stem cell-derived organoids (2023) · cites this paper as [52]
The Results section ('Cancer-associated gene mutations in normal endometrial glands'; page unavailable) identifies cancer-associated mutations in normal tissue, and the Discussion suggests that some mutations in endometrial cancers are inherited from normal endometrium. The paper does not assess a toolkit’s ability or advantage in generating isogenic models; the citing sentence describes that toolkit as the citing authors’ own work. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThis hypothesis had never before been tested in an isogenic model.
“While this hypothesis has been previously proposed48,50–52, it had never before been tested in an isogenic model.”
From One-step generation of tumor models by base editor multiplexing in adult stem cell-derived organoids (2023) · cites this paper as [52]
The Results section describes sequencing naturally occurring endometrial glands, and the Discussion describes their clonal origins. Neither passage addresses whether the hypothesis had previously been tested in an isogenic model; a search for “isogenic model” found no such statement in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.72)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
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One-step generation of tumor models by base editor multiplexing in adult stem cell-derived organoids
Geurts, M. H., Gandhi, S., Boretto, M. G., Akkerman, N., Derks, L. L. M., van Son, G., Celotti, M., Harshuk-Shabso, S., Peci, F., Begthel, H., et al. (2023) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-023-40701-3 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
- Authors
- Yamaguchi, M., Nakaoka, H., Suda, K., Yoshihara, K., Ishiguro, T., Yachida, N., Saito, K., Ueda, H., Sugino, K., Mori, Y., Yamawaki, K., Tamura, R., Revathidevi, S., Motoyama, T., Tainaka, K., Verhaak, R. G. W., Inoue, I., & Enomoto, T.
- Affiliations
- Niigata University (JP)
- National Institute of Genetics (JP)
- RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (JP)
- Amsterdam University Medical Centers (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Nakaoka, Hirofumi
- Yoshihara, Kosuke
- Inoue, Ituro
- Enomoto, Takayuki
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2022-02-17
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 943-943
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC8854701
- OpenAlex
- W4213022417
- Cited by
- 54
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 9
- FWCI
- 4.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Amsterdam UMC (VU Amsterdam) - Institutional Repository (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- The Mouseion at the JAXlibrary (Jackson Laboratory) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Pure Amsterdam UMC (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- MEXT | Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (81-25-227-2320, 20K07318, 19K0982, 17H04336)
- Research Organization of Information and Systems
- Uehara Memorial Foundation
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Cancer Research › Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics
- Keywords
- endometrium, clonal expansion, somatic mutations, cancer genes, clonal diversification, copy-neutral loss of heterozygosity, endometrial regeneration, endometrial glands, endometrial cancer prevention
- MeSH terms
- Adult, DNA Mutational Analysis, Endometrium, Epithelium, Female, Humans, Menstrual Cycle, Middle Aged, Mutation, Ovarian Neoplasms, Biomarkers, Tumor, Endometrial Neoplasms, Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide, Young Adult, Mutation Rate, Clonal Evolution, Spatio-Temporal Analysis, Carcinogenesis
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