Cancer genomics and Single cell sequencing.

Question 1

driver mutation

Answer 1

mutation which drives the progress of a cancer

Question 2

passenger mutation

Answer 2

mutation which accumulates, but doesn’t necessarily contribute to disease

Question 3

examples of databases which track genomic changes in cancer

Answer 3

ICGC, COSMIC

Question 4

allelic fraction

Answer 4

fraction of alleles in the patient which have the mutation you’re looking at- how common is the mutation in the tissue?

Question 5

single cell processes in cancer

Answer 5

transformation
clonal evolution
metastasis
chemoresistance

Question 6

stem cell theory of cancer

Answer 6

there are a few cells within a cancer which act as stem cells, and acquire stem cell-like properties

Question 7

implications of the stem cell theory

Answer 7

maybe we don’t need to be treating whole cancers- molecular assessment as a treatment approach

Question 8

example of single-cell approaches to study cancer

Answer 8

looking at lung cells of current, ex, and non-smokers

could look at the numbers of different mutations of each type- more of these in smokers (current or ex), but the mutations seem ‘worse’ in current

can draw trees of relations between cells, looking at how mutation changes during ageing