Project description:<p>Prostate cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in males throughout the world and has the largest estimated effect of heritability among the most common tumor types. Copy Number Variants (CNVs) are a recently recognized class of human germline polymorphisms (Iafrate AJ, et al. (2004) Nat Genet 36, 949-951; Sebat J, et al. (2004) Science 305, 525-528.) and are associated with a variety of human diseases, including cancer. This study characterized 1,903 individuals from the Tyrol Early Prostate Cancer Detection Program (Bartsch G, et al. (2008) BJU Int 101, 809-816) using a computational framework (Banerjee S, et al. (2011) PLoS One 29;6(3)). The study results establish non-coding and coding germline CNVs as significant risk factors for prostate cancer susceptibility and implicate their role in disease development and progression. The study "Identification of functionally active, low frequency copy number variants at 15q21.3 and 12q21.31 associated with prostate cancer risk," Demichelis F, Setlur SR, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Apr 24;109(17):6686-91.</p>
Project description:<p>Prostate cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in males throughout the world and has the largest estimated effect of heritability among the most common tumor types. Copy Number Variants (CNVs) are a recently recognized class of human germline polymorphisms (Iafrate AJ, et al. (2004) Nat Genet 36, 949-951; Sebat J, et al. (2004) Science 305, 525-528.) and are associated with a variety of human diseases, including cancer. This study characterized 1,903 individuals from the Tyrol Early Prostate Cancer Detection Program (Bartsch G, et al. (2008) BJU Int 101, 809-816) using a computational framework (Banerjee S, et al. (2011) PLoS One 29;6(3)). The study results establish non-coding and coding germline CNVs as significant risk factors for prostate cancer susceptibility and implicate their role in disease development and progression. The study "Identification of functionally active, low frequency copy number variants at 15q21.3 and 12q21.31 associated with prostate cancer risk," Demichelis F, Setlur SR, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Apr 24;109(17):6686-91.</p>
Project description:Purpose: Neuroblastoma is characterized by substantial clinical heterogeneity. Despite intensive treatment, the survival rates of high-risk neuroblastoma patients are still disappointingly low. Somatic chromosomal copy number aberrations have been shown to be associated with patient outcome, particularly in low- and intermediate-risk neuroblastoma patients. To improve outcome prediction in high-risk neuroblastoma, we aimed to design a prognostic classification method based on copy number aberrations. Methods: In an international collaboration, normalized high-resolution DNA copy number data (arrayCGH and SNP arrays) from 556 high-risk neuroblastomas obtained at diagnosis were collected from nine collaborative groups and segmented using the same method. We applied logistic and Cox proportional hazard regression to identify genomic aberrations associated with poor outcome. Results: In this study, we identified two types of copy number aberrations that are associated with extremely poor outcome. (i) Distal 6q losses were detected in 5.9% of patients and were associated with a ten-year survival probability of only 3.4%. (ii) Amplifications of regions not encompassing the MYCN locus were detected in 18% of patients and were associated with a ten-year survival probability of only 5.8%. Conclusion: Using a unique large copy number dataset of high-risk neuroblastoma cases, we identified a small subset of high-risk neuroblastoma patients with extremely low survival probability that might be eligible for inclusion in clinical trials of new therapeutics. The amplicons may also nominate alternative treatments that target the amplified genes.
Project description:Copy number variants (CNVs) are a recently recognized class of human germ line polymorphisms and are associated with a variety of human diseases, including cancer. Because of the strong genetic influence on prostate cancer, we sought to identify functionally active CNVs associated with susceptibility of this cancer type. We queried low-frequency biallelic CNVs from 1,903 men of Caucasian origin enrolled in the Tyrol Prostate Specific Antigen Screening Cohort and discovered two CNVs strongly associated with prostate cancer risk. The first risk locus (P = 7.7 × 10(-4), odds ratio = 2.78) maps to 15q21.3 and overlaps a noncoding enhancer element that contains multiple activator protein 1 (AP-1) transcription factor binding sites. Chromosome conformation capture (Hi-C) data suggested direct cis-interactions with distant genes. The second risk locus (P = 2.6 × 10(-3), odds ratio = 4.8) maps to the ?-1,3-mannosyl-glycoprotein 4-?-N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase C (MGAT4C) gene on 12q21.31. In vitro cell-line assays found this gene to significantly modulate cell proliferation and migration in both benign and cancer prostate cells. Furthermore, MGAT4C was significantly overexpressed in metastatic versus localized prostate cancer. These two risk associations were replicated in an independent PSA-screened cohort of 800 men (15q21.3, combined P = 0.006; 12q21.31, combined P = 0.026). These findings establish noncoding and coding germ line CNVs as significant risk factors for prostate cancer susceptibility and implicate their role in disease development and progression.
Project description:Anal squamous cell carcinoma (ASCC) is an infrequent tumor. Since 70s, treatment of stages II-III consists on a combination of 5-fluorouracil (5FU), mitomycin C (MMC), and radiotherapy. The aim of this study is the identification of biomarkers that allow personalized treatment and improvement of therapeutic outcomes. Forty-six tumor paraffin samples from ASCC patients were analyzed by whole-exome sequencing. Single nucleotide polymorphisms and copy number variants (CNVs) were identified and their relation to disease-free survival (DFS) was studied using BRB Array Tool and Kaplan-Meier analyses. Obtained findings were validated in an independent retrospective cohort of 101 ASCC patients with stages I-III from eleven hospitals within the Multidisciplinary Spanish Digestive Cancer Group (GEMCAD) using qPCR Copy Number Assays. GEMCAD validation cohort was also analyzed using mass spectrometry proteomics to assess the biological features of these tumors.