Single nucleotide polymorphism analysis identifies a new set of tumor suppressor genes.

Human cells usually contain two copies of tumor suppression genes, which inhibit tumor formation by slowing cell division and growth.
when these genes are removed , such as mutations , cancer can occur .
generally speaking, to form a tumor, both copies of the tumor suppression gene must fail in the cell.
however, it can be challenging to identify these bigene abnormalities.
problem is that tumors often contain different proportions of healthy and cancerous cells, making it difficult to determine whether one or two tumor suppressor genes are missing from cancer cells.
this time, scientists at the Francis Crick Institute have created a statistical model -- using single nucleotide polymorphism analysis -- to help overcome these problems.
, a series of new tumor suppressor genes have been identified.
27 new genes were discovered and used models to assess the number of tumor suppressor genes in 2,218 tumor samples from 12 cancers.
these diseases include breast, lung, colorectal, ovarian and brain cancers.
the model not only makes it easier for the team to calculate the relative proportion of health and cancer cells in each tumor, to determine the presence of tumor suppressor genes in cells, but also reveals the unique "DNA footprint" of tumor suppressor genes.
this allows them to distinguish these genes from non-harmful genetic mutations.
, the researchers found 96 gene deletions in the tumor.
includes 43 tumor suppressor genes, 27 of which are previously unknown. "Our study shows that this rare tumor suppressor gene can be identified by large-scale analysis of the number of copies of genes in cancer samples," explains senior author Peter Van Loo of
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," he added, "Cancer genomics is a growing field of research, and the computing tools we use are a powerful tool for discovering cancer-related genes."
"powered by personalized treatment remains one of the world's largest health burdens."
2012, there were approximately 14.1 million newly diagnosed cancer cases worldwide, of which lung, breast and colorectal cancers were the most common.
, more than 1.6 million new cancer cases were diagnosed last year and more than 595,000 people died from cancer.
researchers believe the findings could lead to personalized cancer treatment -- a treatment tailored to individual patients based on the genetic make-up of the tumor.
" Using this powerful toolkit, we found rare tumor suppressor genes that, when lost in mutant cells, can lead to cancer.
this could pave the way for the development of personalized cancer treatment.
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