cancers Article Global Chromatin Changes Resulting from Single-Gene Inactivation—The Role of SMARCB1 in Malignant Rhabdoid Tumor Colin Kenny 1, Elaine O’Meara 2, Mevlüt Ula¸s 2 , Karsten Hokamp 3 and Maureen J. O’Sullivan 1,2,4,* 1 School of Medicine, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland;
[email protected] 2 The National Children’s Research Centre, O’Sullivan Research Laboratory, Oncology Division, Gate 5, Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin, D12N512 Dublin, Ireland;
[email protected] (E.O.);
[email protected] (M.U.) 3 School of Genetics and Microbiology, Trinity College, University of Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland;
[email protected] 4 Histology Laboratory, Pathology Department, Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin, D12N512 Dublin, Ireland * Correspondence:
[email protected] Simple Summary: Malignant rhabdoid tumors (MRT), one of the most lethal, treatment-resistant human cancers, arises in young children within brain, kidney, liver and/or soft tissues. Generally, cancer arises in older adults, and results from multiple significant changes (mutations) accumulating in the genetic blueprint (DNA) of a person’s tissues. This blueprint is composed of a 4-letter alphabet. Together, the multiple significant changes in the blueprint then allow a cell to go “out of control”, becoming a cancer cell. The striking thing about MRT is that it has only a single spelling change, so that mutation must be very powerful to lead to such a lethal cancer. Using a model system that we developed, we show herein how this single mutation alters how the whole of the DNA is arranged, Citation: Kenny, C.; O’Meara, E.; Ula¸s,M.; Hokamp, K.; O’Sullivan, thereby having its profound and lethal effects.