New Theory for Cancer Development

A team at Harvard Medical School has come up with a way to understand the aneuplodiy patterns in tumors and how to predict which genes affect chromosomes that are most likely to be cancer suppressors or promoters. This study proposed that aneuplodiy is a driver of cancer not a result of cancer.

Over the years, cancer research has focused on mutations that change the DNA and promotes cancer. The role of aneuplodiy has not been unstudied. This study predicts that the aneuploidy has a significant role in cancer. This prediction is because the missing or extra chromosomes likely affect genes that are involved in tumor related process.

This study was tested by a developed computer program called TUSON (Tumor Suppressor and Oncogene). This program analyzes the genome sequence from more than 8,200 pairs of cancerous and normal tissue samples. This generates a list of suspected oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes based on the mutation pattern. These also created a list of many more potential cancer drivers. From these lists, they discovered that the number of tumor suppressor genes or oncogenes in a chromosome correlated with how often the whole chromosome or part of the chromosome was deleted or duplicated in the cancer.

These concluded that aneuplody is a driver of cancer not a consequence of cancer. Since this has been discovered, studies can now be done to figure out how mutations, rearrangements and changes in expression weigh into cancer. They plan to gather experimental evidence to support this mathematical finding. Should they continue and explore this conclusion? Would this help researchers find a cure?

Here is the article if you would like to read it:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131031124918.htm