Identification of Somatic Genetic Alterations Using Whole-Exome Sequencing of Uterine Leiomyosarcoma Tumors
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Updated: Oct 31, 2025
Detecting Somatic Genetic Alterations in Tumor Specimens by Exon Capture and Massively Parallel Sequencing
Published on: October 18, 2013
Lihua Chen1,2, Jiajia Li1,2, Xiaohua Wu1,2
1Department of Gynecologic Oncology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, Shanghai, China.
Background:
The genomic abnormalities associated with uterine leiomyosarcoma (uLMS) have not been fully elucidated to date.
Objective:
To understand the pathogenesis of uLMS and to identify driver mutations and potential therapeutic targets in uLMS.
Methods:
Three matched tumor-constitutional DNA pairs from patients with recurrent uLMS were subjected to whole-exome capture and next-generation sequencing. The role of the selected gene SHARPIN in uLMS was analyzed by the CCK-8 assay and colony formation assay after specific siRNA knockdown.
Results:
We identified four genes with somatic SNVs, namely, SLC39A7, GPR19, ZNF717, and TP53, that could be driver mutations. We observed that 30.7% (4/13) of patients with uLMS had TP53 mutations as analyzed by direct sequencing. Analysis of somatic copy number variants (CNVs) showed regions of chromosomal gain at 1q21-23, 19p13, 17q21, and 17q25, whereas regions of chromosomal loss were observed at 2q35, 2q37, 1p36, 10q26, 6p22, 8q24, 11p15, 11q12, and 9p21. The SHARPIN gene was amplified in two patients and mutated in another (SHARPIN: NM_030974: exon2: c.G264C, p.E88D). Amplification of the SHARPIN gene was associated with shorter PFS and OS in soft tissue sarcoma, as shown by TCGA database analysis. Knockdown of SHARPIN expression was observed to decrease cell growth and colony formation in uterine sarcoma cell lines.
Conclusions:
Exome sequencing revealed mutational heterogeneity of uLMS. The SHARPIN gene was amplified in uLMS and could be a candidate oncogene.
