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Intracellular Phosphoflow Cytometry of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Patient-Derived Xenotransplants

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Identifying pathways affected by cancer mutations.

Prathima Iengar¹

¹Molecular Biophysics Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India.

|December 21, 2017

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Cancer mutations frequently impact organismal systems pathways, including the nervous system. This study highlights the underappreciated role of these pathways in cancer, offering new insights into cancer processes through novel visualization methods.

Keywords:

Cancer genes participating in multiple pathways Doughnut plots representing mutated pathways and genes in cancer Gene-wise, chromosome-wise and cancer-wise distribution of cancer mutations Organism-level pathways mutated in cancer Recurrently mutated genes in cancer Sample-wise matrix of gene mutations in cancer Weighting mutated genes and pathways in cancer

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Area of Science:

Genomics and Bioinformatics
Cancer Biology
Systems Biology

Background:

Cancer is driven by genetic mutations affecting cellular processes.
Understanding which biological pathways are impacted by these mutations is crucial for deciphering cancer mechanisms.
Existing research often focuses on well-known pathways, potentially overlooking others.

Purpose of the Study:

To identify and visualize pathways affected by cancer mutations across various cancer types.
To investigate the relative impact of mutations on different pathway groups, including organismal systems.
To uncover insights into fundamental cancer processes by analyzing commonly affected pathways.

Main Methods:

Utilized mutation data from the COSMIC Whole Genomes database for 15 cancers.
Integrated 297 human pathways from the KEGG pathway database, grouped by function.
Defined recurrently mutated genes and pathways affected by these mutations.
Developed novel doughnut plots for visualizing pathway and gene targeting in each cancer.

Main Results:

The 'organismal systems' pathway group was found to be the most targeted by cancer mutations.
This group showed greater targeting than established pathways like signal transduction, cell-cycle, apoptosis, and DNA repair.
Analysis of pathways affected in ≥7 cancers provided insights into common cancer processes.

Conclusions:

Organismal systems pathways play a significant, yet under-recognized, role in cancer development.
Novel visualization techniques effectively illustrate the landscape of pathway involvement in cancer.
Further research into organismal systems pathways is warranted to better understand and target cancer.