Figure 3

Proposed model for CNVs in tumorigenesis. A model of copy-number-variable DNA regions in patients with sporadic (top) or inherited (bottom) cancer. We propose that healthy people maintain a similar low number of CNVs in their genomes (left; black blocks indicate inherited CNVs), whereas those at risk of developing early onset cancer have an excess of CNVs and a greater overall genomic burden of copy-number-variable DNA (middle; red blocks indicate somatically acquired CNVs). As a tumor grows, it acquires more copy-number-variable regions, including tumor-specific regions (blue). Reproduced with permission from [18], copyright (2008) National Academy of Sciences, USA.