School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China; National Engineering Laboratory for Cereal Fermentation Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China; The Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.
School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China; National Engineering Laboratory for Cereal Fermentation Technology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China; The Key Laboratory of Industrial Biotechnology, Ministry of Education, School of Biotechnology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China.
Biochim Biophys Acta Rev Cancer. 2018 Apr;1869(2):149-160. doi: 10.1016/j.bbcan.2017.12.003. Epub 2018 Jan 31.
The driving roles of fusion genes during tumorigenesis have been recognized for decades, with efficacies demonstrated in clinical diagnosis and targeted therapy. With advances in sequencing technologies and computational biology, a surge in the identification of fusion genes has been witnessed during the past decade. The discovery and presence of splicing based fusions in normal tissues have challenged our canonical conceptions on fusion genes and offered us novel medical opportunities. The specificity of fusion genes to neoplastic tissues and their diverse functionalities during carcinogenesis foster them as promising tools in the battle against cancer. It is time to re-visit and comb through our cutting-edge knowledge on fusion genes to accelerate clinical translation of these internal markers. Urged as such, we are encouraged to categorize fusion events according to mechanisms leading to their generation, oncological consequences and clinical implications, offer insights on fusion occurrence across tumors from the system level, highlight feasible practices in fusion-related pharmaceutical development, and identify understudied yet important niches that may lead future research trend in this field.
几十年来，融合基因在肿瘤发生中的驱动作用已得到公认，其在临床诊断和靶向治疗中的疗效已得到证实。随着测序技术和计算生物学的进步，在过去十年中，融合基因的鉴定数量急剧增加。 splicing 融合在正常组织中的发现和存在挑战了我们对融合基因的传统概念，为我们提供了新的医学机会。融合基因对肿瘤组织的特异性及其在癌变过程中的多样性功能，使其成为对抗癌症的有前途的工具。现在是时候重新审视和梳理我们在融合基因方面的最新知识，以加速这些内部标记物的临床转化。因此，我们被鼓励根据导致融合发生的机制、肿瘤学后果和临床意义对融合事件进行分类，从系统水平上提供肿瘤中融合发生的见解，突出融合相关药物开发中的可行实践，并确定研究不足但重要的领域，这些领域可能引领该领域未来的研究趋势。
