Mangaluru: A new genetic study led by Ranajit Das, Riaz Abdulla and Hafeeda Kunhabdulla of Yenepoya (deemed to be university) has uncovered distinctive DNA changes in people with oral cancer from the southwest coast of Karnataka. The study offers fresh clues to how the disease develops in this population.
Published recently in ‘Frontiers in Genetics’, the work shows that the genetic makeup of oral cancers in this region differs sharply from global reference datasets, with some mutations appearing far more often — or almost exclusively — in people from coastal Karnataka.
Oral cancer is a major health challenge in India, but most genetic research so far has focused on people from Europe, North America and other regions. In this first-of-its-kind study from coastal Karnataka, researchers sequenced DNA from both tumour and normal tissues to identify cancer-linked changes.
The team found several genetic alterations that are rare or absent in global cancer databases. Some mutations appeared only in tumour tissue and not in the patients’ normal tissues. These changes were present in a large proportion of participants, indicating they may influence how the cancer develops locally. When compared with international datasets, including large global cancer reference projects, these mutations were far more common in the Karnataka group and not typical of oral cancers studied elsewhere.
The findings suggest that genetic background, environment, lifestyle and local risk factors may together create a distinct genetic fingerprint of disease in this region. Since many global cancer studies under-represent people from India and South Asia, such region-specific variations may have been missed. The mutation patterns seen here highlight that the pathogenicity and clinical course of oral cancer may not be genetically uniform worldwide.
By identifying these locally enriched genetic changes, scientists hope to improve early detection, risk assessment and personalised treatment for people in this high-burden region. The study also opens the door to further research into how these unique changes influence the disease, which could benefit cancer care locally and beyond, stated a release.
