Comment on "The Consensus Coding Sequences of Human Breast and Colorectal Cancers"

doi:10.1126/science.1138764

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Science 14 September 2007:
Vol. 317. no. 5844, p. 1500
DOI: 10.1126/science.1138764

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Technical Comments

Comment on "The Consensus Coding Sequences of Human Breast and Colorectal Cancers"

Gad Getz,¹^* Holger Höfling,²^* Jill P. Mesirov,¹ Todd R. Golub,¹^,3^,4^,5^,6 Matthew Meyerson,¹^,3 Robert Tibshirani,²^,7 Eric S. Lander¹^,6^,8

Sjöblom et al. (Research Article, 13 October 2006, p. 268)reported nearly 200 novel cancer genes said to have a 90% probabilityof being involved in colon or breast cancer. However, theiranalysis raises two statistical concerns. When these concernsare addressed, few genes with significantly elevated mutationrates remain. Although the biological methodology in Sjöblomet al. is sound, more samples are needed to achieve sufficientpower.

¹ Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
² Department of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
³ Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Children's Hospital Boston, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
⁵ Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, USA.
⁶ Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
⁷ Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
⁸ Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.

^* These authors contributed equally to this work.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gadgetz{at}broad.mit.edu