Mutations spread in the normal colon by crypt fission

According to recent research from United Kingdom, "The understanding of the fixation of mutations within human tissues and their subsequent clonal expansion is a considerable problem, of which little is known.

"We have previously shown that nononcogenic mutations in the mitochondrial genome occur in one of a number of morphologically normal colonic crypt stem cells, the progeny of which later occupy the whole crypt."

L.C. Greaves and colleagues at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne reported, "We propose that these wholly mutated crypts then clonally expand by crypt fission,...

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