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A pan-cancer landscape of somatic mutations in non-unique regions of the human genome

Nature Biotechnology volume 39, pages 1589–1596 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

A substantial fraction of the human genome displays high sequence similarity with at least one other genomic sequence, posing a challenge for the identification of somatic mutations from short-read sequencing data. Here we annotate genomic variants in 2,658 cancers from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) cohort with links to similar sites across the human genome. We train a machine learning model to use signals distributed over multiple genomic sites to call somatic events in non-unique regions and validate the data against linked-read sequencing in an independent dataset. Using this approach, we uncover previously hidden mutations in ~1,700 coding sequences and in thousands of regulatory elements, including in known cancer genes, immunoglobulins and highly mutated gene families. Mutations in non-unique regions are consistent with mutations in unique regions in terms of mutation burden and substitution profiles. The analysis provides a systematic summary of the mutation events in non-unique regions at a genome-wide scale across multiple human cancers.

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Fig. 1: Calling mutations in non-unique regions of the genome.
Fig. 2: Concordance of simple and thesaurus mutational profiles.
Fig. 3: Mutation rates in functional regions.
Fig. 4: Thesaurus mutations in gene families.

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Data availability

The PCAWG dataset is available through the ICGC data portal, https://dcc.icgc.org/pcawg. Somatic mutations called in this study are available at https://www.synapse.org/#!Synapse:syn22297877.

Code availability

The thesaurus annotation software is available at sourceforge.net/projects/geneticthesaurus/ and github.com/tkonopka/GeneticThesaurus.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by The Francis Crick Institute, which receives its core funding from Cancer Research UK (FC001202), the UK Medical Research Council (FC001202) and the Wellcome Trust (FC001202). M.T. was supported as a postdoctoral fellow by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement 747852-SIOMICS) and is a postdoctoral researcher of the F.R.S.-FNRS. J.D. is a postdoctoral fellow of the Research Foundation, Flanders (FWO). A.M.F. is an NIHR senior investigator and is supported by the National Institute for Health Research, UCLH Biomedical Research Centre and the CRUK Experimental Cancer Centre. P.V.L. is a Winton Group Leader in recognition of the Winton Charitable Foundation’s support toward the establishment of The Francis Crick Institute. T.K. would like to thank D. Smedley. This project was enabled through the Crick Scientific Computing STP and through access to the MRC eMedLab Medical Bioinformatics infrastructure, supported by the UK Medical Research Council (grant number MR/L016311/1). The Bone Cancer Research Trust funded sample biobanking.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Peter Van Loo, Tomasz Konopka.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Francis Crick Institute, London, UK

    Maxime Tarabichi, Jonas Demeulemeester, Annelien Verfaillie, Peter Van Loo & Tomasz Konopka

  2. Institute for Interdisciplinary Research, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    Maxime Tarabichi

  3. Department of Human Genetics, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Jonas Demeulemeester

  4. Research Department of Pathology, Cancer Institute, University College London, London, UK

    Adrienne M. Flanagan

  5. Department of Cellular and Molecular Pathology, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, Stanmore, UK

    Adrienne M. Flanagan

  6. William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK

    Tomasz Konopka

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Contributions

All authors edited and approved the final manuscript. M.T. wrote the first draft of the paper, designed experiments, performed statistical analyses, performed bioinformatics analyses and performed data visualization. J.D. performed bioinformatics analyses of linked-read data. A.V. generated short-read and linked-read data. A.M.F. provided tumor samples and performed pathology assessments. P.V.L. wrote the first draft of the paper, designed experiments and supervised the study jointly with T.K. T.K. wrote the first draft of the paper, designed experiments, performed statistical analyses, performed bioinformatics analyses, performed data visualization and supervised the study jointly with P.V.L.

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Correspondence to Maxime Tarabichi, Peter Van Loo or Tomasz Konopka.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–28.

Reporting Summary

Supplementary Table 1

Summary of z-scores and histology specificity for all genomic regions. The table contains summary statistics for all genes in the annotation set. Counts, z-scores and entropy scores are provided based on non-hypermutated samples.

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Tarabichi, M., Demeulemeester, J., Verfaillie, A. et al. A pan-cancer landscape of somatic mutations in non-unique regions of the human genome. Nat Biotechnol 39, 1589–1596 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-021-00971-y

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