Cancer Genes: How are they normally expressed?

Cancer Genes: How are they normally expressed

Cancer is a disease that occurs through accumulation of mutations. Mutations at oncogenes and tumor supressor genes play an important role in tumorigenesis. Ocogenes normally regulate cell growth, however mutations at these genes can upregulate or active them, causing aberrant cellular growth. Tumor supressor genes normally protect cells from cancer by stoping cellular growth. However, if mutated they will not be able to function properly, leaving the cell unprotected and the cell will grow more than needed. In the last decade, the western world observed a major increase in the awareness on genetic screening. Followers of the media would remember the famous case of Angelina Jolie, where she has her ovaries and breasts removed after learning that she had a mutation in the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, both are known to increase the risk of getting breast and overies cancer to more than 80 percent. Hence we need a better understanding of the nature of these genes so that we can control and reverse the impact of their alterations better. In my one of my projects, I study cancr evolution and tumor-specific differential regulation. I therefore propose to investigate cancer gene expression in healthy individuals for this project. The database (Gtex) we will use has gene expression data for more 60 tissues in more than 100 individuals. The questions you can answer will include:

In which tissues are they expressed at greatest? Which group is expressed higher? Does the expression change based on age or gender? Which group shows most variation?

Hence, the aims of the projects are:

get familiar with gene expression analysis improve your R skills for data handling and statistical tests if possible, formulate your own questions on a given data set