Epistatic interactions and drug response

Abstract

The advent of massively parallel sequencing has allowed for an unprecedented genetic characterization of cancers, which has revealed not only the complexity of cancer genomes, but also the fact that tumours from the same anatomical site or even of the same histological and/or molecular subtype display distinct constellations of somatic genetic aberrations. Epistatic interactions (ie the interplay between genetic aberrations) are likely to play pivotal roles not only in terms of tumourigenesis and disease progression, but also in response to therapeutic interventions. In this review, we discuss the challenges posed by the complexity of tumour genomes and epistatic interactions, and approaches for harnessing the wealth of genetic information on human cancers for the implementation of precision medicine. Copyright © 2013 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.