A study, reported on Nature, identified 2576 somatic mutations across about 1800 megabases of DNA from 441 tumors of breast, lung, ovarian, and prostate. These 2576 mutations were identified in 967 of the 1507 genes studied. Of the 441 tumors studied, 85% (377) carried one or more protein-altering mutations in the 1507 genes studied. Among the tumor types analyzed, lung cancers had 10 times higher protein-altering mutations than that of prostate cancer. This could be one important factor contributing to the much shorter survival months of patients with lung cancer than that of patients with prostate cancer.

The bright side of the study is that quite a few of receptor tyrosine kinases and g-protein coupled receptors are among the newly identified druggable targets.