Fusion transcript discovery in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression.

The identification of gene fusions promises to play an important role in personalized cancer treatment decisions. Many rare gene fusion events have been identified in fresh frozen solid tumors from common cancers employing next-generation sequencing technology. However the ability to detect transcri...

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Main Authors: Yan Ma, Ranjana Ambannavar, James Stephans, Jennie Jeong, Andrew Dei Rossi, Mei-Lan Liu, Adam J Friedman, Jason J Londry, Richard Abramson, Ellen M Beasley, Joffre Baker, Samuel Levy, Kunbin Qu
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2014-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3984112?pdf=render
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author Yan Ma
Ranjana Ambannavar
James Stephans
Jennie Jeong
Andrew Dei Rossi
Mei-Lan Liu
Adam J Friedman
Jason J Londry
Richard Abramson
Ellen M Beasley
Joffre Baker
Samuel Levy
Kunbin Qu
author_facet Yan Ma
Ranjana Ambannavar
James Stephans
Jennie Jeong
Andrew Dei Rossi
Mei-Lan Liu
Adam J Friedman
Jason J Londry
Richard Abramson
Ellen M Beasley
Joffre Baker
Samuel Levy
Kunbin Qu
author_sort Yan Ma
collection DOAJ
description The identification of gene fusions promises to play an important role in personalized cancer treatment decisions. Many rare gene fusion events have been identified in fresh frozen solid tumors from common cancers employing next-generation sequencing technology. However the ability to detect transcripts from gene fusions in RNA isolated from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor tissues, which exist in very large sample repositories for which disease outcome is known, is still limited due to the low complexity of FFPE libraries and the lack of appropriate bioinformatics methods. We sought to develop a bioinformatics method, named gFuse, to detect fusion transcripts in FFPE tumor tissues. An integrated, cohort based strategy has been used in gFuse to examine single-end 50 base pair (bp) reads generated from FFPE RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq) datasets employing two breast cancer cohorts of 136 and 76 patients. In total, 118 fusion events were detected transcriptome-wide at base-pair resolution across the 212 samples. We selected 77 candidate fusions based on their biological relevance to cancer and supported 61% of these using TaqMan assays. Direct sequencing of 19 of the fusion sequences identified by TaqMan confirmed them. Three unique fused gene pairs were recurrent across the 212 patients with 6, 3, 2 individuals harboring these fusions respectively. We show here that a high frequency of fusion transcripts detected at the whole transcriptome level correlates with poor outcome (P<0.0005) in human breast cancer patients. This study demonstrates the ability to detect fusion transcripts as biomarkers from archival FFPE tissues, and the potential prognostic value of the fusion transcripts detected.
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spelling doaj.art-a0777c3525a842378d41002103011b1e2022-12-21T19:07:31ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032014-01-0194e9420210.1371/journal.pone.0094202Fusion transcript discovery in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression.Yan MaRanjana AmbannavarJames StephansJennie JeongAndrew Dei RossiMei-Lan LiuAdam J FriedmanJason J LondryRichard AbramsonEllen M BeasleyJoffre BakerSamuel LevyKunbin QuThe identification of gene fusions promises to play an important role in personalized cancer treatment decisions. Many rare gene fusion events have been identified in fresh frozen solid tumors from common cancers employing next-generation sequencing technology. However the ability to detect transcripts from gene fusions in RNA isolated from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tumor tissues, which exist in very large sample repositories for which disease outcome is known, is still limited due to the low complexity of FFPE libraries and the lack of appropriate bioinformatics methods. We sought to develop a bioinformatics method, named gFuse, to detect fusion transcripts in FFPE tumor tissues. An integrated, cohort based strategy has been used in gFuse to examine single-end 50 base pair (bp) reads generated from FFPE RNA-Sequencing (RNA-Seq) datasets employing two breast cancer cohorts of 136 and 76 patients. In total, 118 fusion events were detected transcriptome-wide at base-pair resolution across the 212 samples. We selected 77 candidate fusions based on their biological relevance to cancer and supported 61% of these using TaqMan assays. Direct sequencing of 19 of the fusion sequences identified by TaqMan confirmed them. Three unique fused gene pairs were recurrent across the 212 patients with 6, 3, 2 individuals harboring these fusions respectively. We show here that a high frequency of fusion transcripts detected at the whole transcriptome level correlates with poor outcome (P<0.0005) in human breast cancer patients. This study demonstrates the ability to detect fusion transcripts as biomarkers from archival FFPE tissues, and the potential prognostic value of the fusion transcripts detected.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3984112?pdf=render
spellingShingle Yan Ma
Ranjana Ambannavar
James Stephans
Jennie Jeong
Andrew Dei Rossi
Mei-Lan Liu
Adam J Friedman
Jason J Londry
Richard Abramson
Ellen M Beasley
Joffre Baker
Samuel Levy
Kunbin Qu
Fusion transcript discovery in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression.
PLoS ONE
title Fusion transcript discovery in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression.
title_full Fusion transcript discovery in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression.
title_fullStr Fusion transcript discovery in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression.
title_full_unstemmed Fusion transcript discovery in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression.
title_short Fusion transcript discovery in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression.
title_sort fusion transcript discovery in formalin fixed paraffin embedded human breast cancer tissues reveals a link to tumor progression
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3984112?pdf=render
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