Boutros PC…., van der Kwast T, Bristow RG* (2015) “Spatial genomic heterogeneity within localized, mult i-focal prostate cancer” Nature Genetics 47(7):736-745 (PMID: 26005866)
Spatial genomic heterogeneity w/in…prostate #cancer
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v47/n7/full/ng.3315.html WGS analysis of many sites suggests divergent tumor evolution
Boutros…, van der Kwast, Bristow (2015) “Spatial genomic
heterogeneity within localized, multi-focal prostate cancer” Nature Genetics 47(7):736-745 (PMID: 26005866)
This work represents the first systematic relation of intraprostatic genomic heterogeneity to predicted clinical outcomes at the level of whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Five patients, with index tumors of Gleason score 7, were subjected to a WGS protocol with spatial sampling of 23 distinct tumor regions to assess intraprostatic heterogeneity. In their analysis, Boutros et al, discovered recurrent amplification of MYCL, which is associated with TP53 loss. This finding is one of the first clear functional distinctions between MYC family members in prostate cancer and suggests that MYCL amplification may be preferentially localized in the index lesion. Overall, the authors believe their results are useful in the development of prognostic biomarkers that are necessary to achieve personalized prostate cancer medicine. It is important to note that such diagnostic biopsy protocols can miss regions of more aggressive cancers resulting in the patient being under-staged.