Genomic Study of Cancer

All cancers are caused by alterations in DNA that affect the biochemical function or expression of certain genes providing expansion capabilities to the cell with the mutations. Generally this is a multi-step process, requiring alterations in several parts of the genomes that ultimately result in the uncontrolled growth of a clone derived from the cells with the mutations. Genetic aberrations involved in cancer are diverse (i.e. chromosome reorganization, point mutations, over or under-expression, copy number variation) and often appear in combinations. Due to the complex and combinatorial nature of cancer, it is important to approach the study of this disease from a genomic perspective to aim for a fully understanding of the tumourigenesic process. We work on the study of properties and prediction of genes involved in cancer, as well as in the genomic analysis of transcriptional programs related to tumour development.

Resources

IntOGen. Integrative OncoGenomics

RBP2. RBP2/JARID1A role in differentiation

CGPROP. Cancer Gene Properties

CGPrio. Cancer Gene Prioritization

Selected Publications

International Cancer Genome Consortium (including Lopez-Bigas N). International network of cancer genome projects. Nature, 464, 993-998 (2010)

Gundem G, Perez-Llamas C, Jene-Sanz A, Kedzierska A, Islam A, Deu-Pons J, Furney S and Lopez-Bigas N. IntOGen: Integration and data-mining of multidimensional oncogenomic data. Nature Methods, 7, 92-93 (2010) [ visit IntOGen ].

Furney SJ, Gundem G, and Lopez-Bigas N. Oncogenomics Book Chapter in "Genetics of Complex Human Diseases: A Laboratory Manual" CSHL Press 2009.

Lopez-Bigas N, Kisiel TA, DeWaal D, Holmes KB, Volkert TL, Gupta S, Love J, Murray HL, Young RA, and Benevolenskaya EV. Genome-wide Analysis of the H3K4 Histone Demethylase RBP2 Reveals a Transcriptional Program Controlling Differentiation. Molecular Cell, 31:520-530 (2008).

Furney SJ, Calvo B, Larranaga P, Lozano JA, Lopez-Bigas N. Prioritization of candidate cancer genes: an aid to oncogenomic studies. Nucleic Acids Research, (2008).

Furney SJ, Higgins DG, Ouzounis CA, Lopez-Bigas N. Structural and functional properties of genes involved in human cancer. BMC Genomics, 7(0):3 (2006).

Furney SJ#, Madden SF#, Kisiel TA, Higgins DG and Lopez-Bigas N. Distinct patterns in the regulation and evolution of human cancer genes In Silico Biology, 8(0):0004 (2007).