Cancer’s Gene Secrets Decoded

In a remarkable achievement, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified nearly 200 genes that cause breast and colorectal cancers. The discovery assumes significance as breast and colon cancers account for 20 percent of cancer diagnoses and result in about 940,000 deaths worldwide.

The DNA code of 13,000 of the best-known genes in each of 22 tumor samples selected for study was scrutinized by the researchers. They analyzed 465 million chemicals from the tumors, looking for gene mutations linked with cancer. Understanding gene mutations is the key to understand how they cause cancer cells to grow and spread.

The findings help in explaining why cancer is so hard to treat. The team of researchers expected to isolate a handful of cancer-causing genes. However, they found nearly 200, with 69 genes driving colorectal cancer and 122 fueling breast tumors. Moreover, docters found no overlap between the genes that cause breast cancer and those that fuel colorectal tumors.

The report published in the online version of the journal ‘Science’ read, “The vast majority of these genes were not known to be genetically altered in tumors and are predicted to affect a wide range of cellular functions, including transcription, adhesion, and invasion.”

The study reinforces the fact that no single treatment can cure a particular type of cancer. Joan Cunningham, a USC epidemiologist who studies breast cancer said, "Instead of doing what we do now, which is to give the standard treatment for everybody, we will adjust the treatment for each patient and hopefully dramatically affect their cancer."

The results of the study could help to better tailor therapies within a few years, as doctors may be able to use a patient's tumor's genetic profile to predict which existing drugs will work best.

Buckhaults, a specialist in colon cancer research and an assistant professor of pathology at USC said, “In the years to come, scientists will be able to use this information to beat cancer at its own game by designing new chemotherapies that specifically target mutant genes.”