Figure 4.

Functions of ecDNA in tumors. ecDNA plays important roles in tumorigenesis and tumor progression by virtue of several approaches, for example, ecDNA relieves heredity constraints and contributes to dynamic cancer evolution; enhancer hijacking and oncogene amplification of ecDNA can accelerate cancer development. Besides, ecDNA is an unanticipated major source of genomic rearrangements in cancer. More importantly, cancer cells potentially evade therapies that targeted oncogenes maintained on ecDNA by a highly specific, dynamic and adaptive pathway and thus induce treatment resistance.