Comparison of Gene Signatures in Breast and Renal Cancers (2015)

Undergraduate: Sudarshan Mohan

Faculty Advisor: Kimryn Rathmell
Department: Biology

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Cancer is a fundamentally genomic disease, thus, understanding the relationship between cancer and various genomic and molecular aberrations is key to learning more about the onset and development of tumors. New systematic cancer genomics projects provide a way to identify new oncogenic drivers and disease related pathways with speed and accuracy. Such research has fostered an increased appreciation for similarities and differences among various tumor (i.e. disease) types, and may lead to new advances in treatments and therapies. _x000D_
In our project, we use RNA Sequencing data from the Cancer Genome Atlas Project to compare the expression of various gene modules across multiple tumor phenotypes. In initial exploratory analyses using this method, we find similar gene expression signatures between Breast and Renal carcinomas. Both Breast Cancer (BRCA) and Renal Cell Carcinoma (RCC) tumors show similar expression signatures in the PAM50 Luminal A Centroid module, luminal/ER+ estrogen response module, and mouse luminal breast cancer module, all of which are gene groups typically associated with breast cancer tumors. Breast and Renal tumors also show similar gene expression signatures in modules relating to tumor proliferation and p53 mutation. These results seem to suggest that breast and renal tumors may develop and behave similarly, and that Renal tumors may be considered ¿¿¿luminal¿¿¿ based on the PAM50-LumA, MMTV, and Luminal/ER+ Breast Cancer signatures._x000D_