Microsatellite instability (MSI) is an important indicator of larger genome instability and has been linked to many genetic diseases, including Lynch syndrome. MSI status is also an independent ...prognostic factor for favorable survival in multiple cancer types, such as colorectal and endometrial. It also informs the choice of chemotherapeutic agents. However, the current PCR-electrophoresis-based detection procedure is laborious and time-consuming, often requiring visual inspection to categorize samples. We developed MSIsensor, a C++ program for automatically detecting somatic microsatellite changes. It computes length distributions of microsatellites per site in paired tumor and normal sequence data, subsequently using these to statistically compare observed distributions in both samples. Comprehensive testing indicates MSIsensor is an efficient and effective tool for deriving MSI status from standard tumor-normal paired sequence data.
https://github.com/ding-lab/msisensor
The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) has used the latest sequencing and analysis methods to identify somatic variants across thousands of tumours. Here we present data and analytical results for point ...mutations and small insertions/deletions from 3,281 tumours across 12 tumour types as part of the TCGA Pan-Cancer effort. We illustrate the distributions of mutation frequencies, types and contexts across tumour types, and establish their links to tissues of origin, environmental/carcinogen influences, and DNA repair defects. Using the integrated data sets, we identified 127 significantly mutated genes from well-known (for example, mitogen-activated protein kinase, phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase, Wnt/β-catenin and receptor tyrosine kinase signalling pathways, and cell cycle control) and emerging (for example, histone, histone modification, splicing, metabolism and proteolysis) cellular processes in cancer. The average number of mutations in these significantly mutated genes varies across tumour types; most tumours have two to six, indicating that the number of driver mutations required during oncogenesis is relatively small. Mutations in transcriptional factors/regulators show tissue specificity, whereas histone modifiers are often mutated across several cancer types. Clinical association analysis identifies genes having a significant effect on survival, and investigations of mutations with respect to clonal/subclonal architecture delineate their temporal orders during tumorigenesis. Taken together, these results lay the groundwork for developing new diagnostics and individualizing cancer treatment.
Cancer is a disease driven by genetic variation and mutation. Exome sequencing can be utilized for discovering these variants and mutations across hundreds of tumors. Here we present an analysis ...tool, VarScan 2, for the detection of somatic mutations and copy number alterations (CNAs) in exome data from tumor-normal pairs. Unlike most current approaches, our algorithm reads data from both samples simultaneously; a heuristic and statistical algorithm detects sequence variants and classifies them by somatic status (germline, somatic, or LOH); while a comparison of normalized read depth delineates relative copy number changes. We apply these methods to the analysis of exome sequence data from 151 high-grade ovarian tumors characterized as part of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We validated some 7790 somatic coding mutations, achieving 93% sensitivity and 85% precision for single nucleotide variant (SNV) detection. Exome-based CNA analysis identified 29 large-scale alterations and 619 focal events per tumor on average. As in our previous analysis of these data, we observed frequent amplification of oncogenes (e.g., CCNE1, MYC) and deletion of tumor suppressors (NF1, PTEN, and CDKN2A). We searched for additional recurrent focal CNAs using the correlation matrix diagonal segmentation (CMDS) algorithm, which identified 424 significant events affecting 582 genes. Taken together, our results demonstrate the robust performance of VarScan 2 for somatic mutation and CNA detection and shed new light on the landscape of genetic alterations in ovarian cancer.
Massively parallel sequencing technologies hold incredible promise for the study of DNA sequence variation, particularly the identification of variants affecting human disease. The unprecedented ...throughput and relatively short read lengths of Roche/454, Illumina/Solexa, and other platforms have spurred development of a new generation of sequence alignment algorithms. Yet detection of sequence variants based on short read alignments remains challenging, and most currently available tools are limited to a single platform or aligner type. We present VarScan, an open source tool for variant detection that is compatible with several short read aligners. We demonstrate VarScan's ability to detect SNPs and indels with high sensitivity and specificity, in both Roche/454 sequencing of individuals and deep Illumina/Solexa sequencing of pooled samples. Availability and Implementation: Source code and documentation freely available at http://genome.wustl.edu/tools/cancer-genomics implemented as a Perl package and supported on Linux/UNIX, MS Windows and Mac OSX. Contact: dkoboldt@genome.wustl.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Local concentrations of mutations are well known in human cancers. However, their three-dimensional spatial relationships in the encoded protein have yet to be systematically explored. We developed a ...computational tool, HotSpot3D, to identify such spatial hotspots (clusters) and to interpret the potential function of variants within them. We applied HotSpot3D to >4,400 TCGA tumors across 19 cancer types, discovering >6,000 intra- and intermolecular clusters, some of which showed tumor and/or tissue specificity. In addition, we identified 369 rare mutations in genes including TP53, PTEN, VHL, EGFR, and FBXW7 and 99 medium-recurrence mutations in genes such as RUNX1, MTOR, CA3, PI3, and PTPN11, all mapping within clusters having potential functional implications. As a proof of concept, we validated our predictions in EGFR using high-throughput phosphorylation data and cell-line-based experimental evaluation. Finally, mutation-drug cluster and network analysis predicted over 800 promising candidates for druggable mutations, raising new possibilities for designing personalized treatments for patients carrying specific mutations.
Detection and characterization of genomic structural variation are important for understanding the landscape of genetic variation in human populations and in complex diseases such as cancer. Recent ...studies demonstrate the feasibility of detecting structural variation using next-generation, short-insert, paired-end sequencing reads. However, the utility of these reads is not entirely clear, nor are the analysis methods with which accurate detection can be achieved. The algorithm BreakDancer predicts a wide variety of structural variants including insertion-deletions (indels), inversions and translocations. We examined BreakDancer's performance in simulation, in comparison with other methods and in analyses of a sample from an individual with acute myeloid leukemia and of samples from the 1,000 Genomes trio individuals. BreakDancer sensitively and accurately detected indels ranging from 10 base pairs to 1 megabase pair that are difficult to detect via a single conventional approach.
The myelodysplastic syndromes are a group of hematologic disorders that often evolve into secondary acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The genetic changes that underlie progression from the ...myelodysplastic syndromes to secondary AML are not well understood.
We performed whole-genome sequencing of seven paired samples of skin and bone marrow in seven subjects with secondary AML to identify somatic mutations specific to secondary AML. We then genotyped a bone marrow sample obtained during the antecedent myelodysplastic-syndrome stage from each subject to determine the presence or absence of the specific somatic mutations. We identified recurrent mutations in coding genes and defined the clonal architecture of each pair of samples from the myelodysplastic-syndrome stage and the secondary-AML stage, using the allele burden of hundreds of mutations.
Approximately 85% of bone marrow cells were clonal in the myelodysplastic-syndrome and secondary-AML samples, regardless of the myeloblast count. The secondary-AML samples contained mutations in 11 recurrently mutated genes, including 4 genes that have not been previously implicated in the myelodysplastic syndromes or AML. In every case, progression to acute leukemia was defined by the persistence of an antecedent founding clone containing 182 to 660 somatic mutations and the outgrowth or emergence of at least one subclone, harboring dozens to hundreds of new mutations. All founding clones and subclones contained at least one mutation in a coding gene.
Nearly all the bone marrow cells in patients with myelodysplastic syndromes and secondary AML are clonally derived. Genetic evolution of secondary AML is a dynamic process shaped by multiple cycles of mutation acquisition and clonal selection. Recurrent gene mutations are found in both founding clones and daughter subclones. (Funded by the National Institutes of Health and others.).
Somatic mutations have been extensively characterized in breast cancer, but the effects of these genetic alterations on the proteomic landscape remain poorly understood. Here we describe quantitative ...mass-spectrometry-based proteomic and phosphoproteomic analyses of 105 genomically annotated breast cancers, of which 77 provided high-quality data. Integrated analyses provided insights into the somatic cancer genome including the consequences of chromosomal loss, such as the 5q deletion characteristic of basal-like breast cancer. Interrogation of the 5q trans-effects against the Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures, connected loss of CETN3 and SKP1 to elevated expression of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), and SKP1 loss also to increased SRC tyrosine kinase. Global proteomic data confirmed a stromal-enriched group of proteins in addition to basal and luminal clusters, and pathway analysis of the phosphoproteome identified a G-protein-coupled receptor cluster that was not readily identified at the mRNA level. In addition to ERBB2, other amplicon-associated highly phosphorylated kinases were identified, including CDK12, PAK1, PTK2, RIPK2 and TLK2. We demonstrate that proteogenomic analysis of breast cancer elucidates the functional consequences of somatic mutations, narrows candidate nominations for driver genes within large deletions and amplified regions, and identifies therapeutic targets.
Several genetic alterations characteristic of leukemia and lymphoma have been detected in the blood of individuals without apparent hematological malignancies. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) provides ...a unique resource for comprehensive discovery of mutations and genes in blood that may contribute to the clonal expansion of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. Here, we analyzed blood-derived sequence data from 2,728 individuals from TCGA and discovered 77 blood-specific mutations in cancer-associated genes, the majority being associated with advanced age. Remarkably, 83% of these mutations were from 19 leukemia and/or lymphoma-associated genes, and nine were recurrently mutated (DNMT3A, TET2, JAK2, ASXL1, TP53, GNAS, PPM1D, BCORL1 and SF3B1). We identified 14 additional mutations in a very small fraction of blood cells, possibly representing the earliest stages of clonal expansion in hematopoietic stem cells. Comparison of these findings to mutations in hematological malignancies identified several recurrently mutated genes that may be disease initiators. Our analyses show that the blood cells of more than 2% of individuals (5-6% of people older than 70 years) contain mutations that may represent premalignant events that cause clonal hematopoietic expansion.
We report the first large-scale exome-wide analysis of the combined germline-somatic landscape in ovarian cancer. Here we analyse germline and somatic alterations in 429 ovarian carcinoma cases and ...557 controls. We identify 3,635 high confidence, rare truncation and 22,953 missense variants with predicted functional impact. We find germline truncation variants and large deletions across Fanconi pathway genes in 20% of cases. Enrichment of rare truncations is shown in BRCA1, BRCA2 and PALB2. In addition, we observe germline truncation variants in genes not previously associated with ovarian cancer susceptibility (NF1, MAP3K4, CDKN2B and MLL3). Evidence for loss of heterozygosity was found in 100 and 76% of cases with germline BRCA1 and BRCA2 truncations, respectively. Germline-somatic interaction analysis combined with extensive bioinformatics annotation identifies 222 candidate functional germline truncation and missense variants, including two pathogenic BRCA1 and 1 TP53 deleterious variants. Finally, integrated analyses of germline and somatic variants identify significantly altered pathways, including the Fanconi, MAPK and MLL pathways.