Aberrant integration of Hepatitis B virus DNA promotes major restructuring of human hepatocellular carcinoma genome architecture.

ABSTRACT: Most cancers are characterized by the somatic acquisition of genomic rearrangements during tumour evolution that eventually drive the oncogenesis. Here, using multiplatform sequencing technologies, we identify and characterize a remarkable mutational mechanism in human hepatocellular carcinoma caused by Hepatitis B virus, by which DNA molecules from the virus are inserted into the tumour genome causing dramatic changes in its configuration, including non-homologous chromosomal fusions, dicentric chromosomes and megabase-size telomeric deletions. This aberrant mutational mechanism, present in at least 8% of all HCC tumours, can provide the driver rearrangements that a cancer clone requires to survive and grow, including loss of relevant tumour suppressor genes. Most of these events are clon

SUBMITTER: Alvarez EG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8617174 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature