Combination of genomic and transcriptomic assays gives new insights in breast cancer biology

摘要

Breast cancer gene expression profiling has revolutionized our view on breast cancer biology and given insights into the extensive heterogeneity of the disease. However, despite these novel transcriptomic insights, a large number of questions have not yet been answered. As one means to generate a few of these answers, a novel technology has recently been introduced: next generation sequencing analyses allow for the rapid analysis of the (breast cancer) genome and therefore provide a basis to get further insights into the disease biology. In this journal club, Thomas Karn from the University of Frankfurt discusses a recent paper that has used several genomic and transcriptomic assays in parallel to derive 'comprehensive molecular portraits of human breast tumours' and may deservedly been described as one landmark publication in this area of research.