Mutational pressure and natural selection in epidermal growth factor receptor gene during germline and somatic mutagenesis in cancer cells.

In this study we investigated nucleotide usage biases along the length of a gene encoding human epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and found out that there had been mutational GC-pressure with stronger asymmetric C-pressure in that gene before the preferable direction of nucleotide mutations changed. Current preferable direction of germline mutations in EGFR gene has been estimated with the help of Ensembl data base of gene variations. Preferable direction of somatic mutations in EGFR gene from cancer cells has been estimated with the help of COSMIC data base.