Classification of non-small cell lung cancer based on copy number alterations

Abstract

Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer mortality worldwide and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for the most part. NSCLC can be further divided into adenocarcinoma (ACA) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). It is of great value to distinguish these two subgroups clinically. In this study, we compared the genome-wide copy number alterations (CNAs) patterns of 208 early stage ACA and 93 early stage SCC tumor samples. As a result, 266 CNA probes stood out for better discrimination of ACA and SCC. It was revealed that the genes corresponding to these 266 probes were enriched in lung cancer related pathways and enriched in the chromosome regions where CNA usually occur in lung cancer. This study sheds lights on the CNA study of NSCLC and provides some insights on the epigenetic of NSCLC. © 2014 Li et al.