Genetic inheritance influences the type of cancer and its prognosis

Research published in The science breaks the paradigm that most cancers are the result of mutations that occur randomly and accumulate throughout life.

Research team from Stanford University (USA) described in a study that the genetics we inherit This impacts the surveillance our defense does for these mutations, determining the type of tumor that may develop and its prognosis. The results so far relate to mammary cancerpublished in the magazine The science.

The hypothesis these scientists demonstrated is paradigm-shattering.: “What for non-hereditary cancers which appear sporadically (…), the appearance of sporadic mutations and the contribution to cancer were completely independent of inherited non-pathological genetic variants. The authors destroyed this principle“he points Ramon Salazar, Head of Medical Oncology and Director General of the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO).

“For the first time Inherited genetic makeup has been found to influence immunosurveillance and about the types somatic or sporadic mutations (not inherited) this may contribute to the appearance of cancer,” continues the expert on the Science Media Center (SMC) platform.

“Some of the hundreds of physiological genetic variants that can occur in a gene determine that the protein they encode (the small chopped peptides that make it up, or antigens) can be presented in a more or less prominent way to the immune surveillance system (T lymphocytes) through antigen presentation receptors on the cell membrane (major histocompatibility system or HLA),” he elaborates.

The genetic composition of this system is also very variable and may determine that more or less copies of antigens or epitopes, the products of these genes, are better or worse represented, which, when they cause cancer, are so-called oncogenes: a gene that has undergone mutation and can cause cancer. “When they occur frequently and very well, it is unlikely that cancer will develop secondary to that oncogene.”

So far, the study has only been validated for breast cancer and with a type of mutation based on increased copy numbers of certain oncogenes such as HER2 or MYC, linking the changes to different molecular subtypes of breast cancer. They are trying to replicate it in other tumors and with other mutations.

Science DOI: 10.1126/science.adh8697