A deterministic analysis of genome integrity during neoplastic growth in Drosophila

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 6;9(2):e87090. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0087090. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

The development of cancer has been associated with the gradual acquisition of genetic alterations leading to a progressive increase in malignancy. In various cancer types this process is enabled and accelerated by genome instability. While genome sequencing-based analysis of tumor genomes becomes increasingly a standard procedure in human cancer research, the potential necessity of genome instability for tumorigenesis in Drosophila melanogaster has, to our knowledge, never been determined at DNA sequence level. Therefore, we induced formation of tumors by depletion of the Drosophila tumor suppressor Polyhomeotic and subjected them to genome sequencing. To achieve a highly resolved delineation of the genome structure we developed the Deterministic Structural Variation Detection (DSVD) algorithm, which identifies structural variations (SVs) with high accuracy and at single base resolution. The employment of long overlapping paired-end reads enables DSVD to perform a deterministic, i.e. fragment size distribution independent, identification of a large size spectrum of SVs. Application of DSVD and other algorithms to our sequencing data reveals substantial genetic variation with respect to the reference genome reflecting temporal separation of the reference and laboratory strains. The majority of SVs, constituted by small insertions/deletions, is potentially caused by erroneous replication or transposition of mobile elements. Nevertheless, the tumor did not depict a loss of genome integrity compared to the control. Altogether, our results demonstrate that genome stability is not affected inevitably during sustained tumor growth in Drosophila implying that tumorigenesis, in this model organism, can occur irrespective of genome instability and the accumulation of specific genetic alterations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Animals
  • Cell Proliferation
  • Computer Simulation
  • Drosophila melanogaster / genetics*
  • Epithelium / pathology
  • Genetic Variation
  • Genome, Insect / genetics*
  • Genomic Instability*
  • Humans
  • Neoplasms / genetics*
  • Neoplasms / pathology*
  • Open Reading Frames / genetics
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sequence Analysis, DNA
  • Zygote / metabolism

Associated data

  • SRA/SRP017639

Grants and funding

This research has been funded by contributions from the Swiss National Science Foundation and the Novartis Foundation for Medical Biological Research (to G.M.), and the Krebsliga Schweiz and ETH Zurich (to R.P. and G.M.). F.C. is a member of the Life Science Zurich Graduate School. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.