Testing the paradigm: cancer gene sets and the hallmarks of cancer.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Summer 2016

JAX Location

In: Student Reports, Summer 2016, Jackson Laboratory

Abstract

There are more than a 100 different types of cancer. In 2016, 1, 685210 new cancer cases and 595,690 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States alone. The purpose of this study is to capture information regarding cancer gene sets reported from the research community and to standardize the information from those sets to make them computationally approachable. Once standardized through various ontologies, we will use statistical tools to determine differences and similarities within the gene sets. As a first approach we will focus on breast cancer, the most deadly cancer in all women following lung cancer (currently the most deadly cancer among Hispanic women), by analyzing literature and finding breast cancer-related gene sets. Although different analysis tools were used, and each tool gave its own variation of biological processes that were associated with the gene set, the processes were very similar demonstrating consistency among the analysis tools and a concrete foundation of GO processes that could be matched with Cancer Hallmarks. Understanding the functioning of genes implicated in cancers will enhance our ability, within the context of personalized medicine, to develop a more targeted treatment for cancers based on tumor genetics.

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