58. A patient is diagnosed with a hereditary form of colon cancer caused by a defect in a mismatch repair enzyme. How does this specific enzymatic failure contribute to the development of cancer?
(A) It prevents the repair of DNA double-strand breaks, leading to large-scale chromosomal abnormalities.
(B) It allows incorrectly paired nucleotides introduced during DNA replication to persist, increasing the overall mutation rate.
(C) It causes the DNA to become more tightly wound into heterochromatin, silencing tumor suppressor genes.
(D) It fails to remove thymine dimers caused by environmental mutagens like UV light.
(E) It enhances the activity of telomerase, leading to cellular immortality.