Genome analyses identify the genetic modification of lung cancer subtypes.

Lung cancer is a highly intricate and heterogeneous disease with genomic diversity in each subtype. Global analyses of gene expression and sequencing provided us new understanding of the genetic variation between small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) and non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC), including adenocarcinoma (ADC), and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). The genetic variations of lung cancer subtypes in genomic studies were integrated and further analyzed using bioinformatics methods. The lung cancer subtypes share some genetic variations such as the dysfunction of tumor suppressor gene TP53, and also harbor specific variations of their own such as MET in ADC, FGFR1 and FGFR3 in SCC and MYC in SCLC. The activated pathway in lung ADC and SCC mainly focuses on MAPK and PI3K with different key genes of each, respectively, and the activated pathway of SCLC mainly focuses on JAK-STAT pathway. The diagnosis of lung cancer subtypes based on these genetic variations such as SNP was also evaluated. These results provide further insights into the different pathogenesis of lung cancer subtypes.