Drivers and Passengers on the Road to Cancer
The survey, published in Nature today, shows that the number of mutated genes that drive development of cancer is greater than previously thought. Significantly, as well as driver mutations for cancer, each cell type carries many more passenger mutations that have hitchhiked along for the ride. The study shows that a challenge for cancer biologists will be to distinguish the drivers from the larger number of passengers.
“The human genome is a vast place and this, our first deep systematic exploration in cancer, has thrown up many surprises. We have found a much larger number of mutated driver genes produced by a wider range of forces than we expected.”
Professor Mike Stratton Co-leader of the Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
All cancers are believed to be due to mutations – abnormalities in genes. The availability of the human genome sequence has opened the door to analysing hundreds to thousands of genes, which will ultimately allow us to acquire a complete catalogue of the mutations in individual cancers.
The team studied more than 500 genes of a type called kinases, some of which have been previously implicated in causing cancers. One example is the BRAF gene: the 2002 pilot phase of the team’s work showed that BRAF was mutated in more than 60 per cent of cases of malignant melanoma. That observation has driven discovery of new drugs to treat melanoma, some of which are in clinical trials. The current study was much broader and included breast, lung, colorectal and stomach cancers, which are the most common cancer types.
“This is a beautiful study. It nicely shows the power of unbiased large-scale mutational analyses in human cancer, and points to a large number of unappreciated protein kinases that appear to be important in tumorigenesis.”
Victor Velculescu Director of Cancer Genetics, from the Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics and Johns Hopkins University Kimmel Cancer Center
The new research showed that mutations in cancers can be divided into drivers or passengers. Driver mutations are the ones that cause cancer cells to grow, whereas passengers are co-travellers that make no contribution to cancer development. The team identified possible driver mutations in 120 genes, most of which had not been seen before.
“It turns out that most mutations in cancers are passengers. However, buried amongst them are much larger numbers of driver mutations than was previously anticipated. This suggests that many more genes contribute to cancer development than was thought.”
Dr Andy Futreal Co-leader of the Cancer Genome Project as the Sanger Institute
Our understanding of the roles of kinase proteins sheds light on some of the mutations. Kinases can act as a series of relays, switching on and off in our cells, to control cell behaviour, such as cell division.
“For example, we found that a group of kinases involved in the Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor signalling pathway was hit much more than we expected, particularly in colorectal cancers.”
Dr Andy Futreal Sanger Institute
The team also found that the mutations carry important coded messages within them. The type of mutation found varies markedly between individual cancers, reflecting the processes that generated the mutations, some of which were active decades before the cancer showed itself.
Patterns of mutations are an archaeological record written into the DNA of each cancer telling us about the factors that caused the cancer in the first place, which were often active many decades previously. Some of the patterns can be deciphered, such as the signatures of damage from ultraviolet radiation (sunlight) or cancer-causing chemicals in tobacco, but others are currently cryptic and will require decoding in the future.
“This study vindicates all of the effort that went into the Human Genome Project. Understanding the mutations that cause cancer is crucial in order to develop accurately targeted treatments.”
Dr Mark Walport Director of the Wellcome Trust
The new research shows cancers in a different light and highlights many different insights into how cancers develop. The challenge will be distinguishing the drivers from the passengers.
In some cases this is straightforward. For many others, it appears, scientists will have to analyse much larger numbers of each cancer type. New, faster DNA sequencing technologies will play an important part in achieving the scale of study needed.
“The time is right to apply the powerful tools of genomics to obtain a comprehensive view of what goes wrong at the DNA level in cancer. The important and interesting data on protein kinases in this report by Professor Stratton, Dr Futreal and colleagues further encourages the conclusion that a full assault on the cancer genome will yield many opportunities to revolutionize diagnosis and treatment.”
Francis S. Collins MD, PhD, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health
More information
Participating Centres
- Cancer Genome Project, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge UK
- EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge UK
- Molecular Pathology Unit, Neurosurgical Service and Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
- Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK
- Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Brussels, Belgium
- Laboratory of Pathology/Experimental Patho-Oncology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center, Josephine Nefkens Institute, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands
- University of Pennsylvania Cancer Centre, Philadelphia, PA, USA
- Department of Gynaecological Oncology, Westmead Hospital and Westmead Institute for Cancer Research, University of Sydney at the Westmead Millennium Institute, Westmead NSW, Australia
- Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton, Surrey, UK
- Department of Haematology, Addenbrooke’s NHS Trust and University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Cancer Research UK Genetic Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
- Queensland Institute of Medical Research, Royal Brisbane Hospital, Herston, Queensland, Australia
- Van Andel Research Institute, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
- Department of Pathology, The University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong
Funding
The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Publications:
Selected websites
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute
The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, which receives the majority of its funding from the Wellcome Trust, was founded in 1992. The Institute is responsible for the completion of the sequence of approximately one-third of the human genome as well as genomes of model organisms and more than 90 pathogen genomes. In October 2006, new funding was awarded by the Wellcome Trust to exploit the wealth of genome data now available to answer important questions about health and disease.
The Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending around £500 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.
