文摘
Background Mutation studies of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) have revealed complicated heterogeneous genomic landscapes of the disease. These studies cataloged a number of genes mutated at high frequencies, but also report a very large number of genes mutated in lower percentages of tumors. Taking advantage of a well-established forward genetic screening technique, with the Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon, several studies produced PDA and discovered a number of common insertion sites (CIS) and associated genes that are recurrently mutated at high frequencies. As with human mutation studies, a very large number of genes were found to be altered by transposon insertion at low frequencies. These low frequency CIS associated genes may be very valuable to consider for their roles in cancer, since collectively they might emerge from a core group of genetic pathways.