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Cancer Genome Sequencing—An Interim Analysis

Joseph Gottstein Memorial Laboratory, Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington

Requests for reprints: Lawrence A. Loeb, Department of Pathology, University of Washington, Box 357705, 1959 Northeast Pacific Street, Seattle, WA 98195. Phone: 206-543-6015; Fax: 206-543-3967. E-mail: laloeb{at}u.washington.edu.

Key Words: Cancer Genome • Mutations • Sequencing • Molecular Heterogeneity

Abstract

With the publishing of the first complete whole genome of a human cancer and its paired normal, we have passed a key milestone in the cancer genome sequencing strategy. The generation of such data will, thanks to technical advances, soon become commonplace. As a significant number of proof-of-concept studies have been published, it is important to analyze now the likely implications of these data and how this information might frame cancer research in the near future. The diversity of genes mutated within individual tumor types, the most striking feature of all studies reported to date, challenges gene-centric models of tumorigenesis. Although cancer genome sequencing will revolutionize certain aspects of personalized care, the value of these studies in facilitating the development of new therapies, their primary goal, seems less promising. Most significantly, however, the cancer genome sequencing strategy, as currently applied, fails to characterize the most relevant genomic features of cancer—the mutational heterogeneity within individual tumors. [Cancer Res 2009;69(12):4948–4950]