Understanding the role of mtDNA in tumor progression

Abstract

Metabolic reprogramming mediated by nuclear and mitochondrial DNA instability of tumor cells has been pointed as a hallmark of cancer progression. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms have become a powerful tool to explore the impact of genomic instability in the metabolic reprogramming of tumor cells. Here, we propose that the usage of NGS technology can accurately quantify mitochondrial genome instability by assessing some features as mitochondrial mutations, heteroplasmy levels, and mtDNA copy number variations. The evaluation of those parameters joined with nDNA information can improve the understanding of the mitochondrial role in cancer.