Survival of the fittest: even cancer cells follow the laws of evolution
FASEB Journal reveals that each type of cancer contains unique gene mutations that give it Darwin's 'selective advantage'
"This study lays the groundwork for understanding the nature of different mutations in cancers," said Chen-Hsiang Yeung, first author of the study, "and helps with understanding the mechanisms of cancers and their responses to drug treatments."
To arrive at these conclusions, researchers analyzed about 500,000 cancer mutation records from the Catalog of Somatic Mutations in Cancer database and then divided the data into 45 tissue types. Within each tissue type, they calculated the frequency that multiple genes were mutated in the same sample. They identified the frequencies of mutations that were significantly higher or lower than if the genes had mutated independently. Then they mapped out how these genes ultimately lead to cancerous tumors and checked whether the genes occurring in specific tissues used the same or different cancer pathways.
"Little could Darwin have known that his 'Origin of the Species' would one day explain the 'Origin of the Tumor,'" said Gerald Weissmann, MD, Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "This research report completely changes our understanding of the many gene mutations that cause cancer."
Original publication: Chen-Hsiang Yeang, Frank McCormick, and Arnold Levine; "Combinatorial patterns of somatic gene mutations in cancer"; FASEB J. 2008 22: 2605-2622.
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