FIGURE 1.

Triggers, mechanisms, and consequences of chromothripsis. Chromothripsis may arise in any cell, including somatic cells, germline cells, zygotes, and blastomeres of preimplantation embryos, thus, determining the fate of an affected organ or the whole organism. Chromothripsis is induced by exogenous and/or endogenous factors which trigger chromosome shattering and sequential reassembly of fragments through micronuclei formation, breakage-fusion-bridge cycles, aberrant epigenetic regulation, abortive apoptosis, and other yet unknown mechanisms.