Mayo Clinic researchers along with collaborators from Life Technologies are reporting on the application of a new approach for sequencing RNA to study cancer tumors. Their findings from a proof-of-principle study on oral carcinomas, appear in the current issue of PLoS One, the online science journal.
To explore the advantages of massively parallel sequencing of genomic transcripts (RNA), the researchers used a novel, strand-specific sequencing method using matched tumors and normal tissues of three patients with the specific cancer. They also analyzed the genomic DNA from one of the tumor-normal pairs which revealed numerous chromosomal regions of gain and loss in the tumor sample. The key finding of this work was that alterations in gene expression which can arise from a variety of genomic alterations frequently are driven by losses or gains in large chromosomal regions during tumor development. In addition to the specific tumor findings, this study also demonstrated the value of this RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) method. It will allow researchers to measure strand-specific expression across the entire sample’s transcriptome. This technology reveals far more detail about genome-wide transcription than traditional microarrays.
“This method allows us to investigate genetic changes at a level that we were never able to see before,” says David I. Smith, Ph.D., Mayo Clinic genomics researcher and corresponding author of the study. “This provides us with much more information about alterations during cancer development that could reveal important therapeutic targets.We can more completely understand the relationship between an individuals genome and the alterations to that which result in disease. This is a huge step in speed, detail and diagnostic power for the field of individualized medicine. This transforms how we are going to study cancer – and how we’re going to practice medicine – in the very near future.”
The urgency of this condition points to the need for more efficient technologies and methods. Head and neck cancers are the 6th most prevalent carcinomas in the world. Advanced stage oral and throat cancers have a 5-year survival rate of only 50% in the United States. Information provided by these and continued studies will help to better characterize the molecular basis of cancer development. That information can hopefully define better therapeutic strategies for treating an individual’s specific cancer.
Others involved in the research include co-first author Rebecca Laborde, Ph.D., Kerry Olsen, M.D., Jan Kasperbauer, M.D. Eric Moore, M.D., and Yan Asmann, Ph.D., of Mayo Clinic; and co-first author Brian Tuch, Ph.D., Xing Xu Ph.D., Christina Chung Ph.D., Cinna Monighetti Ph.D., Sarah Stanley, Adam Broomer, Ruoying Tan Ph.D., Pius Brzoska Ph.D., Matthew Muller, Asim Siddiqui Ph.D., Yongming Sun, Ph.D., Melissa Barker, M.S. and Francisco De La Vega, Ph.D., all of Life Technologies, Foster City, CA.
The research was supported by Mayo Clinic and Life Technologies. The funders had no role in study design, data collection, analysis or publishing. Some authors are or have been employed by Life Technologies which makes technology and materials used in the study. Data and materials will be shared.
Below is a link to an edited youtube video with Dr. Smith.
It is always nice to see another development in the prevention process of cancer. I hope someday we all can find the cure of it (the one that doesn’t include chemotherapy… coz it’s painful)
My husband died of oral cancer. My mother-in-law died of oral cancer. My husband did not smoke. Stopped drinking socially more than 20 years before his death and did not have HPV. Is there any credible research being done on familial oral cancer?
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