Sara Chitgaram - Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Saeed Khatami - Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Ehsan Soltani - Department of General Surgery, Acute Care Surgery Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Taleghani University Hospital, Mashhad, Iran
Amir Nader Emami Razavi - Iran National Tumor Bank, Cancer Biology Research Center, Cancer Institute of Iran, Tehran University ofMedical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Maryam M.Matin - Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
Moein Farshchian - Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Research Group, Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research(ACECR), Khorasan Razavi, Mashhad, Iran

Backgrounds: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths inboth men and women, all around the world. Since current treatments are not really effective,molecular targeted therapy would be advantageous for CRC therapy. Next generation sequencingtechnologies provide new insight into the dynamics of cancer development. In this work, wefocused on molecular dynamics of mRNAs at transcription level to identify some of the recurrentfusion genes in colorectal cancer.Materials and Methods: This study was carried out using RNA-seq data from NCBI data bank(PRJEB۲۷۵۳۶ bio project). For this purpose, a total of ۶۰ matched samples were analyzed withFusionCatcher V.۱.۲۰. A list of fusions was then constructed for all the cancer samples, andfinally the frequency of recurrent fusions was evaluated.Results: REG۴, CEACAM۵ and OLFM۴ were the most recurrently fused genes present incancer samples in comparison with their normal counterparts. REG۴ is a very hyperactivemRNA in terms of transcriptional dynamics and is involved in the most frequent fusions incancer such as PIGR-REG۴, MUC۲-REG۴ and KRT۸-REG۴. Other recurrent fusions wereCEACAM۵-MUC۲, CEACAM۵-KRT۸ and OLFM۴-PIGR.Conclusion: Our study revealed that REG۴, CEACAM۵ and OLFM۴ are among the mostfrequent fusions found in our cancer data. The oncogenic role of these fusions can beinvestigated with further functional analysis. Some of these fusions can be druggable and mightbe good candidates for molecularly targeted therapy.

Colorectal cancer, Transcriptome analysis, Fusion transcripts, Recurrent fusion