{"id":65952,"date":"2021-08-04T08:38:16","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T07:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pcb.ub.edu\/researchers-at-irb-barcelona-develop-a-tool-that-identifies-cancer-driver-mutations-for-each-tumour-type\/"},"modified":"2021-08-24T09:49:03","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T08:49:03","slug":"researchers-at-irb-barcelona-develop-a-tool-that-identifies-cancer-driver-mutations-for-each-tumour-type","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pcb.ub.edu\/en\/researchers-at-irb-barcelona-develop-a-tool-that-identifies-cancer-driver-mutations-for-each-tumour-type\/","title":{"rendered":"Machine learning fuels personalised cancer medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Biomedical Genomics Laboratory<\/a>, led by ICREA researcher\u00a0Dr. N\u00faria L\u00f3pez-Bigas at IRB Barcelona<\/a> in PCB, has created a computational tool that identifies cancer driver mutations for each tumour type. This and other developments produced by the same lab seek to accelerate cancer research and provide tools to help oncologists choose the best treatment for each patient. The study has been published in the journal Nature<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each tumour\u2014each patient\u2014accumulates many mutations, but not all of them are relevant for the development of cancer. Researchers led by ICREA researcher\u00a0Dr. N\u00faria L\u00f3pez-Bigas\u00a0<\/strong>at IRB Barcelona have developed a tool, based on machine learning methods, that evaluates the potential contribution of all possible mutations in a gene in a given type of tumour to the development and progression of cancer.<\/p>\n

In previous work that is already available to the scientific and medical community, the laboratory developed a method to identify those genes responsible for the onset, progression, and spread of cancer. “BoostDM\u00a0goes further: it simulates each possible mutation within each gene for a specific type of cancer and indicates which ones are key in the cancer process. This information helps us to understand how a tumour is caused at the molecular level and it can facilitate medical decisions regarding the most appropriate therapy for a patient,” explains\u00a0Dr. L\u00f3pez-Bigas<\/strong>, head of the Biomedical Genomics lab. In addition, the tool will contribute to a better understanding of the initial processes of tumour development in different tissues.<\/p>\n

The new tool has been integrated into the\u00a0IntOGen platform, developed by the same group and designed to be used by the scientific and medical community in research projects, and into the\u00a0Cancer Genome Interpreter, also developed by this group and which is more focused on clinical decision-making by medical oncologists.<\/p>\n

BoostDM\u00a0currently works with the mutational profiles of 28,000 genomes analysed from 66 types of cancer. The scope of\u00a0BoostDM\u00a0will grow as a result of the foreseeable increase in publicly accessible cancer genomes.<\/p>\n

An advance founded on evolutionary biology<\/strong><\/h3>\n

To identify the mutations involved in cancer, the scientists based themselves on a key concept in evolution, namely positive selection. Mutations that drive the growth and development of cancer are found in higher numbers in distinct samples, compared to those that would occur randomly.<\/p>\n

“We started from the premise that we only get to observe some mutations because the tumour cells with this mutation guide the development of the tumour, and we questioned what distinguishes these mutations from other possible mutations,” says\u00a0Dr. Ferran Mui\u00f1os<\/strong>, postdoctoral researcher and co-first author of the work. “Doing this analysis manually would be excessively laborious, but there are computational strategies that allow it to be organised systematically and efficiently,” he adds.<\/p>\n

From the data, the proposed method learns what attributes are distinctive of the mutations that favour the development of cancer and this information is useful for the development of new therapeutic approaches.<\/p>\n

\u00bb Reference article:<\/strong> “In silico saturation mutagenesis of cancer genes”. Ferran Mui\u00f1os, Francisco Martinez-Jimenez, Oriol Pich, Abel Gonzalez-Perez & Nuria Lopez-Bigas Nature (2021) DOI:10.1038\/s41586-021-03771-1<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00bb For further information: IRB Barcelona website [+]<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n