Next generation sequencing approach for detecting 491 fusion genes from human cancer

Next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) of the genomes of cancer cells is contributing to new discoveries that illuminate the mechanisms of tumorigenesis. To this end, the International Cancer Genome Consortium and The Cancer Genome Atlas are investigating novel alterations of genes that will define the pathways and mechanisms of the development and growth of cancers. These efforts contribute to the development of innovative pharmaceuticals as well as to the introduction of genome sequencing as a component of personalized medicine. In particular, chromosomal translocations that fuse coding sequences serve as important pharmaceutical targets and diagnostic markers given their association with tumorigenesis. Although increasing numbers of fusion genes are being discovered using NGS, the methodology used to identify such fusion genes is complicated, expensive, and requires relatively large samples. Here, to address these problems, we describe the design and development of a panel of 491 fusion genes that performed well in the analysis of cultured human cancer cell lines and 600 clinical tumor specimens.