A massive survey of patient genomes has unveiled dozens of mutational signatures associated with various cancer types. The work, published yesterday (April 21) in Science, also includes a new tool to allow clinicians to search for such patterns of mutations in individual cancer patients, something the team argues could point to beneficial therapies.
“The reason it is important to identify mutational signatures is because they are like fingerprints at a crime scene—they help to pinpoint cancer culprits,” University of Cambridge genomicist and bioinformatician Serena Nik-Zainal, an honorary consultant in clinical genetics at Cambridge University Hospitals, tells The Guardian. For example, certain signatures point to tobacco smoking or exposure to ultraviolet radiation as the causative mutagens. “Some mutational signatures have clinical or treatment implications—they can highlight abnormalities that may be targeted with specific drugs or may indicate a potential ‘achilles heel’ in individual cancers,” Nik-Zainal says.
“We can really begin to ...
