Nemanja Rodić, Jared P Steranka, Alvin Makohon-Moore, Allison Moyer, Peilin Shen, Reema Sharma, Zachary A Kohutek, Cheng Ran Huang, Daniel Ahn, Paolo Mita, Martin S Taylor, Norman J Barker, Ralph H Hruban, Christine A Iacobuzio-Donahue, Jef D Boeke, Kathleen H Burns
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is typically diagnosed after the disease has metastasized; it is among the most lethal forms of cancer. We recently described aberrant expression of an open reading frame 1 protein, ORF1p, encoded by long interspersed element-1 (LINE-1; L1) retrotransposon, in PDAC. To test whether LINE-1 expression leads to somatic insertions of this mobile DNA, we used a targeted method to sequence LINE-1 insertion sites in matched PDAC and normal samples. We found evidence of 465 somatic LINE-1 insertions in 20 PDAC genomes, which were absent from corresponding normal samples...
September 2015: Nature Medicine