Probing the cancer genome 英文参考文献.docVIP

Meeting report Probing the cancer genome Heidi Greulich Address: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Binney St, Boston, MA 02115, and Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. Email: heidig@ Published: 15 May 2008 Genome Biology 2008, 9:309 (doi:10.1186/gb-2008-9-5-309) The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2008/9/5/309 ? 2008 BioMed Central Ltd at the transcript level. It is anticipated that developments in A report on the Keystone Symposium ‘Cancer Genomics and Epigenomics’, Taos, USA, 19-24 February 2008. single-molecule sequencing technology will further facilitate this approach. In contrast to translocation discovery, global assessment of copy-number changes by comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and its more recent variants is well established. How- ever, increased resolution of segment breakpoints can be theo- retically achieved using single-molecule sequencing techno- logies, and Matthew Meyerson (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, USA) presented preliminary data on the development and application of Solexa sequencing for use in higher- resolution digital karyotyping of copy-number alterations. Unlike heart disease, the overall mortality rate for cancer has not significantly improved over the past 50 years, indicating an unmet need for better cancer treatments, in particular for targeted therapies that are more effective and less toxic than traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy. Development of such therapies requires a detailed understanding of cancer genomes, including the effects of epigenomic modifications. A recent Keystone Meeting on cancer genomics and epigenomics addressed this knowledge gap, and some of the highlights are presented here. Copy-number data obtained by these techniques can be used to subclassify tumor samples by patterns of amplification and deletion.