The genomic complexity of primary human prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the second most common cause of male cancer deaths in the United States. However, the full range of prostate cancer genomic alterations is incompletely characterized. Here we present the complete sequence of seven primary human prostate cancers and their paired normal counterparts. Several tumours contained complex chains of balanced (that is, ‘copy-neutral’) rearrangements that occurred within or adjacent to known cancer genes. Rearrangement breakpoints were enriched near open chromatin, androgen receptor and ERG DNA binding sites in the setting of the ETS gene fusion TMPRSS2–ERG, but inversely correlated with these regions in tumours lacking ETS fusions. This observation suggests a link…

• UD
  U.S. Department of Defense
• HH
  Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• PC
  Prostate Cancer Foundation
• DC
  Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center

  Award: P50 CA090381
• MF
  Movember Foundation
• BI
  Broad Institute
• KF
  Kohlberg Foundation
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Awards: CA090381, P50 CA090381
• NH
  National Human Genome Research Institute
• NC
  National Cancer Institute

  Awards: P50 CA090381, CA090381