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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Jun 17.
Published in final edited form as: N Engl J Med. 2009 Dec 17;361(25):2449–2460. doi: 10.1056/NEJMra0804588

Figure 3. Genetic Instability Pathways That Drive Colon Neoplasias.

Figure 3

Shown are the overlapping relationships that define the major pathways of genomic instability in colon cancers: chromosomal instability, microsatellite instability caused by defects in DNA mismatch-repair genes that are either inherited as germ-line defects (e.g., in hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer) or somatically acquired (e.g., by aberrant methylation and epigenetic silencing of MLH1), and the CpG island methylator phenotype.