I am looking for a gold standard list of genes that are well recognized to have no association with cancer. Is there such a list publicly available?
Edit: a list such as this will be useful for understanding which genes should/can be excluded from genetic analysis to decrease multiple hypothesis issues.
Edit 2: I agree and further am trying to show that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. A list of well agreed upon genes without association to cancer would be helpful in my analysis because I will be able to roughly calculate statistics such as Specificity and Diagnostic Rate to determine how well the analysis is declaring genes of interest.
It is a good point that excluding genes upfront does introduce a bias, however, the list would be equally as useful to have on the back-end of the analysis for statistical reasons.
I doubt if a gene not yet reported to be associated with cancer now really means it does not truly has any connection with tumour development. GWAS has done a great job indeed, and through their outcomes of studies you may get some info, but your choice of word "gold standard" is a clear bias to your study.
Interesting question, looking at this from the other direction.
Usually we look for genetic predisposition to cancer so that the individuals can be advised for better screening and earlier interventions and prognostication.
What would be the clinical implications of knowing what are the non cancer related genes?
Hi Rob Schultz . It is a tricky proposition because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Excluding some genes will also bias your results, making it harder to publish.
I doubt if a gene not yet reported to be associated with cancer now really means it does not truly has any connection with tumour development. GWAS has done a great job indeed, and through their outcomes of studies you may get some info, but your choice of word "gold standard" is a clear bias to your study.
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