By cracking a three billion character DNA code, researchers at the B.C. Cancer Agency are the first to map the evolution of breast cancer.
Scientists sequenced a metastatic breast cancer cell to find 32 DNA coding mutations or "typos", which emerged over nine years.
Described as cellular "bad eggs", five of the mutations were present in all tumours, six mutations were present at a lower frequency and 19 mutations went undetected from the original sample.
"This business of trying to target all the bad eggs relies on the knowledge of who the bad eggs are," BCCA director Dr. Marco Marra said yesterday when announcing the discovery. "Now, we can actually identify the bad eggs within the community of cells that make up the tumour."
Further pharmaceutical research would allow oncologists to tailor prescriptions to target specific DNA mutations early on in diagnosis.
Technological advances already allow researchers at to BCCA to sequence three to four cancerous DNA cells per day with potential for widespread clinical application.
BCCA molecular oncology head Dr. Aparicio said as more samples are processed, and hundreds if not thousands more mutations are detected, the challenge will be associating drugs for each bad egg.
