Cosmic Cancer Gene Census: Expert Descriptions Across Genes In Oncogenesis

The Cancer Gene Census is an ongoing effort to catalogue genes for which somatic mutations have been causally implicated in cancer. The Census comprises manually curated summaries of the most relevant information for cancer-driving genes and their somatic mutations and brings together the expertise of a dedicated curation team, cancer scientists and the comprehensive resources of the COSMIC database. Current research focuses on characterising the participation of 609 census genes in hallmarks of cancer and identification of additional genes involved in these biological traits primarily via altered expression, CNA or epigenetic changes. New overviews of cancer gene function focused on hallmarks of cancer pull together manually curated information on the function of proteins coded by cancer genes and summarises the data in simple graphical form. It presents a condensed overview of most relevant facts with quick access to the literature source, aiming to provide summary characteristics of a cancer gene, rather than a full monography, to avoid information overload. This functional characterisation enables the creation of lists of genes of interest focused on the particular role they play in the development of cancer, as well as aiming to identify the cellular functions affected by mutations in particular tumours, and help to choose right targets for targeted therapy or synthetic lethality experiments. The Census is available from the COSMIC website for online use or download at: http://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/census. Citation Format: Zbyslaw Sondka, Sally Bamford, Charlotte G. Cole, Elisabeth Dawson, Laura Ponting, Raymund Stefancsik, Sari A. Ward, John Tate, Peter J. Campbell, Simon A. Forbes. COSMIC Cancer Gene Census: expert descriptions across genes in oncogenesis [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2599. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-2599