Netting Pancreatic Cancer Genes

摘要

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) are aggressive human cancers that often develop silently and progress to untreatable metastatic disease prior to diagnosis. Using an exome sequencing strategy to identify recurrent somatic mutations in PanNETs, Jiao et al. (p. 1199, published online 20 January; see the Perspective by Elsasser et al.) find that the most commonly mutated genes, affecting nearly 45% of the tumors, encode proteins implicated in chromatin remodeling. About 15% of the tumors had mutations altering the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway. mTOR inhibitors are already being tested as cancer therapies, so the mutational status of the PanNETs could help to identify which patients are most likely to respond to these drugs.