The question of whether CIN drives cells into a highly aneuploid state remained unanswered prior to this study, despite observations that persistent chromosome missegregation is presumed to cause high aneuploidaneuploidy levels in tumor cells. This study addresses the bidirectional relationship between CIN and aneuploidy by examining whether elevated missegregation rates can generate aneuploid cells. [@thompson_examining_2008]

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The relationship between chromosomal instability (CIN) and aneuploidy has long been recognized through their correlation in tumor cells, yet whether CIN directly causes aneuploidy or merely accompanies it remained mechanistically unclear. While classic mitotic defects like impaired bipolar spindle assembly and spindle assembly checkpoint dysfunction can explain CIN in only a small subset of aneuploid tumor cells, the underlying mechanisms driving CIN in most chromosomally unstable cells were previously undetermined. Experimental evidence has established that specific defects such as merotely and reduced CENP-E levels can induce both chromosome missegregation and aneuploidy, yet chromosome missegregation alone proves insufficient for generating viable aneuploid cell populations without additional phenotypic adaptations. This gap between observing elevated missegregation rates and achieving sustained aneuploid cell propagation highlights the unresolved question of how CIN causally contributes to aneuploidy beyond simply increasing the frequency of chromosome segregation errors.

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