School of Medicine and Health Sciences Poster Presentations
Pan-Cancer Analysis of RNA Editing
Poster Number
17
Document Type
Poster
Publication Date
3-2016
Abstract
Analysis of the human exome and transcriptome by next-generation sequencing has improved the state of cancer research, because it allows for the detection of variant alleles that may drive tumorigenesis. The consequence of variants introduced post-transcriptionally in the transcriptome through RNA editing is that function and regulation of mRNA and miRNA can be affected, resulting in nonfunctional proteins or proteins with different functions than those intended in the genome sequence. Despite the extensive studies, many functional variants introduced through RNA editing are likely to have been missed because they occur at a low frequency, or in a tissue- or tumor-specific manner.
My research is focused on the application of RNA2DNAlign, a new sequence alignment program developed by the Horvath lab, to detect or identify novel variants through the comparison of the normal and tumor exome and transcriptome sequences from the same individual. We downloaded human genome and transcriptome datasets from individuals affected by several different cancer types: breast invasive carcinoma, liver hepatocellular carcinoma, and kidney renal clear cell carcinoma. We analyzed RNA-editing patterns within and across cancer types. Our analysis identified RNA-editing events that have not been reported before and are specific to the cancer type.
The larger implication of my research is that it may be possible to identify novel variants that drive or contribute to tumorigenesis. These variants can potentially be used to develop improved diagnostic and therapeutic molecular tools.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Open Access
1
Pan-Cancer Analysis of RNA Editing
Analysis of the human exome and transcriptome by next-generation sequencing has improved the state of cancer research, because it allows for the detection of variant alleles that may drive tumorigenesis. The consequence of variants introduced post-transcriptionally in the transcriptome through RNA editing is that function and regulation of mRNA and miRNA can be affected, resulting in nonfunctional proteins or proteins with different functions than those intended in the genome sequence. Despite the extensive studies, many functional variants introduced through RNA editing are likely to have been missed because they occur at a low frequency, or in a tissue- or tumor-specific manner.
My research is focused on the application of RNA2DNAlign, a new sequence alignment program developed by the Horvath lab, to detect or identify novel variants through the comparison of the normal and tumor exome and transcriptome sequences from the same individual. We downloaded human genome and transcriptome datasets from individuals affected by several different cancer types: breast invasive carcinoma, liver hepatocellular carcinoma, and kidney renal clear cell carcinoma. We analyzed RNA-editing patterns within and across cancer types. Our analysis identified RNA-editing events that have not been reported before and are specific to the cancer type.
The larger implication of my research is that it may be possible to identify novel variants that drive or contribute to tumorigenesis. These variants can potentially be used to develop improved diagnostic and therapeutic molecular tools.
Comments
Presented at: GW Research Days 2016