Since sequencing the human genome, the Sanger Institute in the UK and the US National Human Genome Research Institute have turned their sights -- and their vast sequencing capacities -- to cancer. Cancers can be thought of as genomic diseases, caused by somatic mutations, and progressing by the accumulation of further mutations. Last week, Nature published online the papers describing two new cancer genomes,[1][2] bringing the total number of human cancer genome sequences published to five. Pleasance et al sequenced a malignant melanoma and a lung cancer cell line, comparing them to the genomes of healthy cells from the same individuals. Melanoma and lung cancer are good choices, since each has a very strong association with a specific cause -- UV radiation and tobacco smoke respectively -- and their causes are as different as two carcinogens can get, so comparison of the genomes of such tumours could tell us interesting things about the types of genes and chromosomal regions susceptible to physical versus chemical carcinogenesis.
source - http://cotch.net/index.php?tag=molecular%20biology
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