World Journal of
Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences

ONCOGENOMICS: BLUEPRINT OF CANCER CELLS

*Kushal Nandi, Amrita Chakraborty, Dr. Dhrubo Jyoti Sen and Dr. Dhananjoy Saha

ABSTRACT

The genomics era began in the 1990s, with the generation of DNA sequences of many organisms. In the 21st century, the completion of the Human Genome Project enabled the study of functional genomics and examining tumor genomes. Cancer is a main focus. The epigenomics era largely began more recently, about 2000. One major source of epigenetic change is altered methylation of CpG islands at the promoter region of genes (see DNA methylation in cancer). A number of recently devised methods can assess the DNA methylation status in cancers versus normal tissues. Some methods assess methylation of CpGs located in different classes of loci, including CpG islands, shores, and shelves as well as promoters, gene bodies, and intergenic regions. Cancer is also a major focus of epigenetic studies. Access to whole cancer genome sequencing is important to cancer (or cancer genome) research because: • Mutations are the immediate cause of cancer and define the tumor phenotype. • Access to cancerous and normal tissue samples from the same patient and the fact that most cancer mutations represent somatic events, allow the identification of cancer-specific mutations. • Cancer mutations are cumulative and sometimes are related to disease stage. Metastasis and drug resistance are distinguishable. • Access to methylation profiling is important to cancer research because: • Epi-drivers, along with Mut-drivers, can act as immediate causes of cancers • Cancer epimutations are cumulative and sometimes related to disease stage

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