Background Tumorigenesis is a multi-step process which is accompanied by substantial changes in genome organization. The development of these changes is not only a random process, but rather comprise specific DNA regions that are prone to the reorganization process. Results We have analyzed previously published SNP arrays from three different cancer types (pancreatic adenocarcinoma, breast cancer and metastatic melanoma) and from non-malignant control samples. We calculated segmental copy number variations as well as breakpoint regions. Some of these regions were not randomly involved in genome reorganization since we detected fifteen of them in at least 20% of all tumor samples and one region on chromosome 9 where 43% of tumors have a breakpoint. Further, the top-15 breakpoint regions show an association to known fragile sites. The relevance of these common breakpoint regions was further confirmed by analyzing SNP arrays from 917 cancer cell lines. Conclusion Our analyses suggest that genome reorganization is common in tumorigenesis and that some breakpoint regions can be found across all cancer types, while others exclusively occur in specific entities.

中文翻译：

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不同癌症类型中的基因组重组：检测癌症特异性断点区域。

背景 肿瘤发生是一个多步骤的过程，伴随着基因组组织的重大变化。这些变化的发展不仅是一个随机过程，而是包含易于重组过程的特定 DNA 区域。结果 我们分析了先前发表的来自三种不同癌症类型（胰腺腺癌、乳腺癌和转移性黑色素瘤）和非恶性对照样本的 SNP 阵列。我们计算了分段拷贝数变化以及断点区域。其中一些区域并非随机参与基因组重组，因为我们在至少 20% 的所有肿瘤样本中检测到其中的 15 个，并且在 9 号染色体上的一个区域中检测到 43% 的肿瘤具有断点。此外，前 15 个断点区域显示出与已知脆弱位点的关联。通过分析来自 917 个癌细胞系的 SNP 阵列，进一步证实了这些常见断点区域的相关性。结论 我们的分析表明，基因组重组在肿瘤发生中很常见，并且一些断点区域可以在所有癌症类型中找到，而其他断点区域仅发生在特定实体中。