BRAF and colorectal cancer: Earlier studies have also shown that BRAF mutations substantially overlap with other genetic and epigenetic subtypes of colorectal cancer, such as the microsatellite instability (MSI) phenotype characterized by change in the length of simple nucleotide repeats resulting from mismatch repair deficiency, and the CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) characterized by widespread hypermethylation of CpG islands [13, 14].