Genetic Redundancy, Functional Compensation, and Cancer Vulnerability

Matteo Cereda; Thanos P Mourikis; Francesca D Ciccarelli

doi:10.1016/j.trecan.2016.03.003

Genetic Redundancy, Functional Compensation, and Cancer Vulnerability

Trends Cancer. 2016 Apr;2(4):160-162. doi: 10.1016/j.trecan.2016.03.003. Epub 2016 Mar 28.

Authors

Matteo Cereda¹, Thanos P Mourikis¹, Francesca D Ciccarelli²

Affiliations

¹ Division of Cancer Studies, King's College London, London SE1 1UL, UK.
² Division of Cancer Studies, King's College London, London SE1 1UL, UK. Electronic address: francesca.ciccarelli@kcl.ac.uk.

PMID: 28741568
DOI: 10.1016/j.trecan.2016.03.003

Abstract

Cancer genomes acquire somatic alterations that largely differ between and within cancer types. Several of these alterations inactivate genes that are normally functional with no deleterious consequences on cancer cells due to genetic redundancy. Here we discuss how this leads to cancer synthetic dependencies that can be exploited in therapy.

Keywords: cancer genomics; functional redundancy; paralog dependency; personalized medicine; synthetic lethality.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Genetic Predisposition to Disease
Genome
Humans
Mutation
Neoplasms / genetics*