Genes responsible for cancers

Question

[akij]

I am looking for a list of genes responsible for cancers. For example, BRCA1, BRCA2 are responsible for breast cancer. There must be lot of other genes responsible for breast cancer. What I am looking for is something like top 10-20 genes responsible for each of 10-15 major cancer types. Is there any such list available?

[GenoMax]

Have you checked OMIM?

Answer 1

[WouterDeCoster]

genes responsible for cancers

BRCA1, BRCA2 are responsible for breast cancer

I don't want to be pedantic, but that's just plain wrong terminology. Genes are not responsible for a disease.

About BRCA1:

This gene encodes a nuclear phosphoprotein that plays a role in maintaining genomic stability, and it also acts as a tumor suppressor. The encoded protein combines with other tumor suppressors, DNA damage sensors, and signal transducers to form a large multi-subunit protein complex known as the BRCA1-associated genome surveillance complex (BASC). This gene product associates with RNA polymerase II, and through the C-terminal domain, also interacts with histone deacetylase complexes. This protein thus plays a role in transcription, DNA repair of double-stranded breaks, and recombination. Mutations in this gene are responsible for approximately 40% of inherited breast cancers and more than 80% of inherited breast and ovarian cancers. Alternative splicing plays a role in modulating the subcellular localization and physiological function of this gene. Many alternatively spliced transcript variants, some of which are disease-associated mutations, have been described for this gene, but the full-length natures of only some of these variants has been described. A related pseudogene, which is also located on chromosome 17, has been identified. [provided by RefSeq, May 2009]

You might be interested in genes which may contribute to cancer development in case they acquire mutations.

For that, have a look at COSMIC

Answer 2

[Nicolas Rosewick]

Check on tumorportal : http://www.tumorportal.org/ for informations about most mutated genes in different cancer types

[Santosh Anand]

Hi, what's the main similarity/difference compared to COSMIC?

[Collin]

Tumorportal will only contain genes that are driven by small somatic mutations. This completely leaves out copy number alterations (although they do show copy number on their visual plots) and fusion genes. The cancer gene census from COSMIC, however, doesn't provide that great of breakdown on what cancer types a gene is relevant in. Tumorportal also generally includes lower confidence genes, including those which are "near significant" (I disagree with their practice as it is statistically unrigorous and is kind of "cherry picking").