Integrated clinical and genomic analysis identifies driver events and molecular evolution of colitis-associated cancers [Proj_07182_W]

Inflammation has long been recognized to contribute to cancer development, particularly across the gastrointestinal tract. Patients with inflammatory bowel disease have an increased risk for bowel cancers, and it has been posited that a field of genetic changes may underlie this risk. Wnt pathway alterations are infrequent, and our data suggest transcriptional rewiring away from Wnt. These findings suggest neoplastic bowel lesions developing in a background of inflammation experience lineage plasticity away from Wnt activation early during tumorigenesis and largely occur as genetically independent events. Overall design: We are comparing expression profiles between 6 sporadic colorectal cancers and 5 colitis-associated cancers.