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Åke Borg

Åke Borg

Principal investigator

Åke Borg

Frequent miRNA-convergent fusion gene events in breast cancer

Author

  • Helena Persson
  • Rolf Søkilde
  • Jari Häkkinen
  • Anna Chiara Pirona
  • Johan Vallon-Christersson
  • Anders Kvist
  • Fredrik Mertens
  • Åke Borg
  • Felix Mitelman
  • Mattias Höglund
  • Carlos Rovira

Summary, in English

Studies of fusion genes have mainly focused on the formation of fusions that result in the production of hybrid proteins or, alternatively, on promoter-switching events that put a gene under the control of aberrant signals. However, gene fusions may also disrupt the transcriptional control of genes that are encoded in introns downstream of the breakpoint. By ignoring structural constraints of the transcribed fusions, we highlight the importance of a largely unexplored function of fusion genes. Here, we show, using breast cancer as an example, that miRNA host genes are specifically enriched in fusion genes and that many different, low-frequency, 5 partners may deregulate the same miRNA irrespective of the coding potential of the fusion transcript. These results indicate that the concept of recurrence, defined by the rate of functionally important aberrations, needs to be revised to encompass convergent fusions that affect a miRNA independently of transcript structure and protein-coding potential.

Department/s

  • Cancer and non coding RNA
  • Breastcancer-genetics
  • Familial Breast Cancer
  • The genetics of soft tissue tumors
  • BioCARE: Biomarkers in Cancer Medicine improving Health Care, Education and Innovation
  • Division of Clinical Genetics
  • Urothelial Cancer Genomics

Publishing year

2017-12-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

Nature Communications

Volume

8

Issue

1

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Topic

  • Medical Genetics
  • Cancer and Oncology

Status

Published

Research group

  • Cancer and non coding RNA
  • Familial Breast Cancer
  • The genetics of soft tissue tumors
  • Urothelial Cancer Genomics

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 2041-1723