Absence of BRAF exon 15 mutations in multiple myeloma and Waldenström's macroglobulinemia questions its validity as a therapeutic target in plasma cell neoplasias.

Purpose: Recent whole genome and/or exome sequencing in a cohort of 32 Multiple Myeloma (MΜ) patients reported the incidence of BRAF mutations at 4%, while in another exome sequencing study, BRAF mutations were reported in up to 13% of cases tested. We ran a confirmatory study by using High Resolution Melting Analysis (HRMA), which is a low-cost, straightforward and sensitive screening test for detection of BRAF exon 15 mutations in MM and Waldenström's macroglobulinemia (WM) patients, in order to investigate their incidence in every day clinical practice. We considered this investigation to be of clinical relevance following the recent emergence of potent anti-BRAF compounds.

Cancer epigenetics: new therapies and new challenges.

Cancer is nowadays considered to be both a genetic and an epigenetic disease. The most well studied epigenetic modification in humans is DNA methylation; however it becomes increasingly acknowledged that DNA methylation does not work alone, but rather is linked to other modifications, such as histone modifications. Epigenetic abnormalities are reversible and as a result novel therapies that work by reversing epigenetic effects are being increasingly explored.

Interactive exploration of RNA22 microRNA target predictions.

MicroRNA (miRNA) target prediction is an important problem. Given an miRNA sequence the task is to determine the identity of the messenger RNAs targeted by it, the locations within them where the interactions happen and the specifics of the formed heteroduplexes. Here, we describe a web-based application, RNA22-GUI, which we have designed and implemented for the interactive exploration and in-context visualization of predictions by RNA22, one of the popular miRNA target prediction algorithms.