A study led by Columbia University (USA), with the participation of the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (northeast of Spain) and the Catalan Institute of Oncology ( ICO), identified key cancer vulnerabilities by Big Data analysis of 10,000 tumors.
IDIBELL explained on Tuesday that the results obtained, published in the scientific journal “Cell”, have the potential to improve the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Researchers have analyzed, through computational algorithms, the genomic data of 10,000 tumors of the 20 most common cancers with the aim of “identifying the regulatory proteins responsible for channeling information from genomic alterations and transforming it into cancer ‘s own transcriptional identity “.
Thus, they have identified up to 112 tumor subtypes defined by 407 of these regulatory proteins that channel information.
In addition, the analysis has shown that the 112 tumor subtypes can be cataloged from the degree of activation or inactivation of only 24 groups of regulatory proteins, or what is the same, the combination of 24 fundamental characteristics of cancer.
Knowing what the key characteristics of a particular cancer are can help to make a very reliable prediction of the patient’s prognosis.
Researchers have validated some of the key features described in prostate or kidney cancers, among others, and through genetic editing techniques and pharmacological treatments have shown that predictions made through algorithms are met in model trials. experimental.