Genomic alterations in breast cancer patients from Northeast India using 10K SNP arrays
Background North-east India has always been a ‘hotspot’ for population geneticists because of its unique, strategic geographic location and the presence of linguistically, culturally and demographically diverse populations practicing various tobacco habits. This region reports a high incidence of breast cancer in females with a history of extensive exposure to tobacco. Therefore, this population is constantly exposed to a high level of genotoxic stress. Accumulation of multiple and discrete genetic events during tobacco exposure can combine to drive breast cancer pathogenesis. Direct analysis of the tumor genome can reveal the genomic events accumulated during tumor progression. Hence, we investigated genomic alterations in breast cancer patients with tobacco exposure.