Momenta, Baxter partner to develop and commercialize biosimilars
June 27, 2017
From the RNA sequencing analysis they built a list of candidate gene fusions, narrowing it down to a single gene fusion that could be a cancer-causing event. A genomic inversion event occurred on chromosome 10 in the cancer, fusing the KIF5B and RET genes. This fusion was particularly interesting because RET has been previously implicated in other gene fusion events known to drive thyroid cancers, and although it is normally expressed at low levels in the lung, chimeric RET in this patient is highly expressed. Furthermore, KIF5B contains a protein domain that is necessary for activation of the fusion gene.
They then confirmed that the KIF5B-RET fusion occurs in other lung cancer cases, finding two instances in twenty additional cases of lung cancer, indicating that this fusion event is not rare. The authors suggest that the KIF5B-RET fusion occurs in about 6% of all lung adenocarcinoma cases. The authors note that although further epidemiological studies are needed to accurately define the frequency of KIF5B-RET in lung cancers, they expect that the fusion gene may be a promising molecular target for treatment.
"We showed that genome sequencing technology could reveal a previously hidden cause of human cancer, which can be used as a therapeutic target for personal cancer therapy", said Dr. Jeong-Sun Seo, director of the Genomic Medicine Institute-Seoul National University, chairman of Macrogen Inc., and senior author of the study.
Source: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory