Genetic Map Reveals Origins of Common Cancers

Researchers from the UK are reporting they have been able to map the first detailed layout of genetic faults that cause cancers, offering profound insights into the disease.

The map details over 20 "genetic signatures", or patterns of mutation, that alone or in combination drive 30 different types of cancer, including brain, lung, pancreas and breast tumors.

"What is remarkable is how little we know about the processes that are causing the mutations in other types of cancer," said Mike Stratton, the lead author on the study and director of the Sanger Institute in Cambridge. "That is the question we set out to address."

In a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, researchers said they are yet to figure out the biological processes that cause mutations behind most common cancers.

"(This) is an important step to discovering the processes that drive cancer formation," said Serena Nik-Zainal of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute who worked on the research.

"Through detailed analysis, we can start to use the overwhelming amounts of information buried deep in the DNA of cancers to our advantage in terms of understanding how and why cancers arise."

The team analyzed the genetic codes of 7,042 cases of cancer in people from around the world, covering 30 different types of the disease, to see if they could find patterns, or signatures, of mutational processes.

"We're beginning to know quite a lot about what the consequences of those mutations are. But actually we have a really rudimentary understanding of what is causing the mutations in the first place," said Mike Stratton, the Sanger Institute's director and the lead researcher on this study.

"And after all, the things that are causing those mutations are the causes of cancer."