cGAS-STING and the deadly CIN: how chronic inflammation represents a therapeutic vulnerability in chromosomally unstable cancers.

Chromosomal instability (CIN) is a key genomic driver of human cancer. CIN generates genomic copy-number heterogeneity and tumor-derived inflammation. In a recent paper, Hong et al. identify the cGAS-STING innate immune pathway as a crucial dependency in cancer cells with CIN and pinpoint the IL6/STAT3 axis as a therapeutic vulnerability in these difficult-to-treat tumors.