Researchers from the UK and USA are working together to investigate the genetic underpinnings of cancer in the human genome. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Applied Biosystems are sequencing a cancer genome and normal DNA from the same individual to detect and characterise the genetic changes that occur during the development of the disease.
In this collaboration, scientists will use five Applied Biosystems SOLiD systems in an effort to sequence the genomes of a small cell lung cancer cell line and a non-cancerous cell line, and cover all of the genomic variations in both cell lines. This project is expected to advance research recently carried out by the Sanger Institute's Cancer Genome Project, which examined low coverage of structural
variation in cancerous and normal cell lines.
Structural variants consist of gene copy number variations, single-base duplications, inversions, translocations, insertions and deletions. By surveying single-base changes (single nucleotide polymorphisms [SNPs]) and larger segments of genomic rearrangements, or structural variations, researchers expect to obtain more in-depth coverage of all the types of genetic variation that contribute to cancer.
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