Neoplasm

Exome sequencing identifies recurrent mutations in NF1 and RASopathy genes in sun-exposed melanomas.

We report on whole-exome sequencing (WES) of 213 melanomas. Our analysis established NF1, encoding a negative regulator of RAS, as the third most frequently mutated gene in melanoma, after BRAF and NRAS. Inactivating NF1 mutations were present in 46% …

Identification of PLX4032-resistance mechanisms and implications for novel RAF inhibitors.

BRAF inhibitors improve melanoma patient survival, but resistance invariably develops. Here we report the discovery of a novel BRAF mutation that confers resistance to PLX4032 employing whole-exome sequencing of drug-resistant BRAF(V600K) melanoma …

Adjusting for background mutation frequency biases improves the identification of cancer driver genes.

A common goal of tumor sequencing projects is finding genes whose mutations are selected for during tumor development. This is accomplished by choosing genes that have more non-synonymous mutations than expected from an estimated background mutation …

MicroRNA signatures differentiate melanoma subtypes.

Melanoma is an aggressive cancer that is highly resistance to therapies once metastasized. We studied microRNA (miRNA) expression in clinical melanoma subtypes and evaluated different miRNA signatures in the background of gain of function somatic and …

Integrative analysis of epigenetic modulation in melanoma cell response to decitabine: clinical implications.

Decitabine, an epigenetic modifier that reactivates genes otherwise suppressed by DNA promoter methylation, is effective for some, but not all cancer patients, especially those with solid tumors. It is commonly recognized that to overcome resistance …

MEDME: an experimental and analytical methodology for the estimation of DNA methylation levels based on microarray derived MeDIP-enrichment.

DNA methylation is an important component of epigenetic modifications that influences the transcriptional machinery and is aberrant in many human diseases. Several methods have been developed to map DNA methylation for either limited regions or …