BioCentury
ARTICLE | Targets & Mechanisms

Passenger mutations take the wheel

September 6, 2012 7:00 AM UTC

Two research groups have independently shown that targeting genes carrying passenger mutations blocked growth of cancer cells and improved survival in mouse models.1,2 Although precise therapeutic windows for such a strategy remain to be determined, the researchers are already planning to develop therapeutics that exploit the presence of those mutations to inhibit tumor growth.

Hotly pursued cancer targets are usually proteins encoded by tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes such as BRAF and BCR-ABL tyrosine kinase because mutations in those genes promote malignant transformation and drive disease progression. However, most solid tumors also accumulate thousands of mutations in other genes over the course of disease...