Epigenetic Switch-Induced Viral Mimicry Evasion in Chemotherapy-Resistant Breast Cancer.

Tumor progression upon treatment arises from preexisting resistant cancer cells and/or adaptation of persister cancer cells committing to an expansion phase. Here, we show that evasion from viral mimicry response allows the growth of taxane-resistant triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). This is enabled by an epigenetic state adapted to taxane-induced metabolic stress, where DNA hypomethylation over loci enriched in transposable elements (TE) is compensated by large chromatin domains of H3K27me3 to warrant TE repression.