Abstract
Mutational signatures are patterns of mutations that arise during tumorigenesis. We present an enhanced, practical framework for mutational signature analyses. Applying these methods to 3,107 whole-genome-sequenced (WGS) primary cancers of 21 organs reveals known signatures and nine previously undescribed rearrangement signatures. We highlight interorgan variability of signatures and present a way of visualizing that diversity, reinforcing our findings in an independent analysis of 3,096 WGS metastatic cancers. Signatures with a high level of genomic instability are dependent on TP53 dysregulation. We illustrate how uncertainty in mutational signature identification and assignment to samples affects tumor classification, reinforcing that using multiple orthogonal mutational signature data is not only beneficial, but is also essential for accurate tumor stratification. Finally, we present a reference web-based tool for cancer and experimentally generated mutational signatures, called Signal (https://signal.mutationalsignatures.com), that also supports performing mutational signature analyses.
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Data availability
Previously published WGS data that were reanalyzed here are available under accession codes EGAS00001001178 (a dataset of 560 breast cancers), EGAD00001002740 (a dataset of 80 breast cancers) and EGAS00001001692 (ICGC PCAWG). WGS data from the Hartwig cohort can be accessed from www.hartwigmedicalfoundation.nl/en. Signature networks are available as an interactive visualization at the web link https://signal.mutationalsignatures.com/explore/cancer/network.
Numerical source data for Fig. 1 and Extended Data Figs. 5a–h and 10 have been provided as Source Data file 1. Numerical source data for Figs. 2–8 and Extended Data Figs. 1–9 can be found in Supplementary Tables 1–113. All other data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Code availability
Signature extraction and fit code is freely available as an R package at https://github.com/Nik-Zainal-Group/signature.tools.lib. Additional R scripts used to perform the analysis are available as Supplementary Code, also available on github at the address https://github.com/Nik-Zainal-Group/DegasperiEtAl-NatureCancer2020-SupplCode.
Change history
17 June 2020
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-020-0093-8
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Acknowledgements
This work was funded by a Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Pioneer Award (grant no. C60100/A23433), Wellcome-Beit Prize, CRUK Advanced Clinician Scientist Fellowship (grant no. C60100/A23916), Wellcome Trust Strategic Award (WT100126/B/13/Z) and CRUK PRECISION Grand Challenge award. We thank J. Zamora, Y. Xu, D. R. Jones, R. Harris and S. P. Jackson, for their support in the development of the SIGNAL website. We would also like to thank the International Cancer Genome Consortium for access to WGS primary cancer data. This work has been facilitated by Hartwig Medical Foundation (HMF) and the Center for Personalized Cancer Treatment (CPCT), which have generated and made available metastatic whole cancer genome data for this research.
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Contributions
S.N.Z. conceived the project. A.D. designed and performed the analysis, and developed the algorithms. A.D. and S.N.Z. interpreted the results and wrote the manuscript. S.N.Z., H.D., G.K., C.B., S.E.M. and J.Y. critically assessed the biological soundness of methods and results. D.G., X.Z., T.D.A., A.S.N., S.M., S.S., J.C., I.G.S., Y.M. and J.M.L.D. contributed to algorithm development and testing. A.D. and Y.M. implemented the algorithms in an R package. S.S. and J.C. developed the Signal web tool, implemented part of the analysis framework online and contributed to the manuscript.
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S.N.Z., D.G. and H.D. are inventors on a patent application on HRDetect. All other authors declare no competing interests.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Optimal relative tolerance for the selection of best NMF runs.
(a-f) Repeated NMF application to the Breast 560 dataset (560 patient samples and 1000 NMF runs) of SNV organized in 96 channels. a, Distribution of the optimal Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD) obtained from 1000 NMF runs (n = 1000) and for different number of k mutational signatures extracted (k from 9 to 13). Red vertical lines indicate the best (lowest) KLD, the 0.1% relative tolerance (RTOL) from best and the 1% RTOL from best. b, Convergence of global minimum for different k values. The 1000 values of optimal KLD in (a) are randomly ordered 50 times and the minimum KLD after each run is computed for each ordered sequence. Average (solid lines) and standard deviation (dotted lines) are then plotted. Red horizontal lines indicate the best KLD and 0.1% RTOL from best. c, The same KLD values from the five plots in (a) are combined in one single plot. (d-f) PCA plots of mutational signatures obtained from the Breast 560 catalogue, with number of signatures k = 10. In each row, three plots show principal components (PC) 1 with 2, 1 with 3 and 2 with 3, using the same projection of the first row. Colors indicate clusters computed with the clustering with matching algorithm, triangles are the medoids of the clusters and on top of the triangles the most similar COSMIC signatures (or sum of signatures), according to cosine similarity, are indicated. A black line connects the two closest medoids according to cosine similarity. The cosine similarity of the two closest medoids (max cos sim of medoids) and the average silhouette width (ASW) are indicated for each row. d, PCA plot obtained using 1000 NMF runs (n = 1000). e, PCA plot obtained using only the NMF runs within 1% RTOL from the best run. f, PCA plot obtained using only the NMF runs within 0.1% RTOL from the best run. The 1000 NMF runs used in this plot are the same as in panel (a) (k = 10). (g-h) Repeated NMF application to the Breast 560 dataset and additional PCAWG datasets. ASW of clustering mutational signatures from best NMF runs for different values of relative tolerance (g) or different number of total NMF runs (h). g, For each of the six datasets and for different number of mutational signatures (n sig), multiple NMF runs are performed (1000 for Breast 560 and 500 for the others). A relative tolerance (RTOL) with respect to the best (lowest) optimization function value obtained is used to select a subset of best NMF runs, that is all runs with optimization function value less or equal to best*(1 + RTOL). For each selected set of best runs, the obtained signatures are clustered using clustering with matching, and the ASW is computed. The six plots show the value of the ASW for different values of RTOL and number of signatures extracted (n sig). h, For each of the six datasets and for different number of mutational signatures (n sig), multiple NMF runs are performed (plot x axis). A relative tolerance (RTOL = 0.1%) with respect to the best (lowest) optimization function value obtained is used to select a subset of best NMF runs, that is all runs with optimization function value less or equal to best*(1.001). For each selected set of best runs, the obtained signatures are clustered using clustering with matching, and the ASW is computed. The six plots show the average of n = 10 replicates of the ASW for different number of total NMF runs performed and number of signatures extracted (n sig). Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Supplementary Tables 1 and 112.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Global Signature Extraction.
24 substitution signatures obtained from a signature extraction pooling 2,486 tumours across 21 organs. Several artefactual signatures are present among these signatures (details of the analysis can be found in Supplementary Notes). Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Supplementary Table 112.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Substitution signatures extracted per organ from 3107 samples, part 1.
First part of 192 organ-specific substitution signatures, obtained across 21 organs (n = 3107 samples). Signatures names have letters or numbers (between parentheses), where numbers indicate the associated reference signatures as defined by the conversion matrix (Methods and Supplementary Table 9). Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Supplementary Table 2 and 112.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Substitution signatures extracted per organ from 3107 samples, part 2.
Second part of 192 organ-specific substitution signatures, obtained across 21 organs (n = 3107 samples). Signatures names have letters or numbers (between parentheses), where numbers indicate the associated reference signatures as defined by the conversion matrix (Methods and Supplementary Table 9). Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Supplementary Table 2 and 112.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Rearrangement signatures extracted per organ from 3107 samples, part 1.
First part of 116 organ-specific substitution signatures, obtained across 19 organs (n = 3021 samples). Signatures names have letters or numbers (between parentheses), where numbers indicate the associated reference signatures as defined by the conversion matrix (Methods and Supplementary Table 10). Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Supplementary Table 3 and 113.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Rearrangement signatures extracted per organ from 3107 samples, part 2.
Second part of 116 organ-specific substitution signatures, obtained across 19 organs (n = 3021 samples). Signatures names have letters or numbers (between parentheses), where numbers indicate the associated reference signatures as defined by the conversion matrix (Methods and Supplementary Table 10). Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Supplementary Table 3 and 113.
Extended Data Fig. 7 Hierarchical clustering of substitution mutational signatures obtained from organ-wise independent extraction.
a, Clustering of organ-wise extracted substitution signatures, using hierarchical clustering with average linkage and 1 – cosine similarity as distance metric. Red boxes indicate the identified signature groups and the corresponding group reference signature is indicated at the bottom. b, Reference signatures for each group in (a), given as the mean and standard error of the signatures in each group. Cosine similarity with the most similar COSMIC signature is indicated, along with the number of signatures in the group (n) and the reference signature name. c, Cosine similarity between the reference signature of each group and the individual signatures that belong to each group. Group sizes are the same as in panel (b). Boxes show median, 1st and 3rd quartile, with whiskers extending at most 1.5·IQR. Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Supplementary Table 2 and 4.
Extended Data Fig. 8 Hierarchical clustering of rearrangement mutational signatures obtained from organ-wise independent extraction.
a, Clustering of organ-wise extracted rearrangement signatures, using hierarchical clustering with average linkage and 1 – cosine similarity as distance metric. Red boxes indicate the identified signature groups and the corresponding group reference signature is indicated at the bottom. b, Reference signatures for each group in (a), given as the mean and standard error of the signatures in each group. Cosine similarity with the most similar rearrangement signature from Nik-Zainal et al. 2016 is indicated, along with the number of signatures in the group (n) and the reference signature name. c, Cosine similarity between the reference signature of each group and the individual signatures that belong to each group. Group sizes are the same as in panel (b). Boxes show median, 1st and 3rd quartile, with whiskers extending at most 1.5·IQR.
Extended Data Fig. 9 Similarity between substitution reference signatures and single base substitution COSMIC signatures.
Cosine Similarity between the substitution reference signature (Extended Data Fig. 7b) and the COSMIC single base substitution signatures (SBS) was computed. Red squares indicate a cosine similarity higher than 0.9; blue squares indicated a cosine similarity between 0.85 and 0.9; white squares indicate a cosine similarity lower than 0.85. Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Supplementary Table 4.
Extended Data Fig. 10 Simulated experiments, mutational signature assignment to samples.
A total of 30 mutational catalogues were simulated (n = 5 replicate simulated datasets) using 10 COSMIC signatures. Mutational signatures were extracted using different approaches, and assigned to the 30 samples using a bootstrap signature fit approach. Each sample was bootstrapped 100 times and each time signature activity in the sample was estimated by optimizing the Kullback-Leibler Divergence (KLD). A consensus activity is then computed for each sample as the median of the results, and then the sparsity of the activity is increased by setting to zero activities that are not statistically higher than a given threshold (threshold = 0, 1, 2, 5, 10 percent of total number of mutations and p-value 0.05, that is set to 0 if more than 5% of the runs is below the threshold). The correct number of signatures k = 10 is used. Filter: only the best NMF runs are considered; no filter: all NMF runs are used; Lee KLD: Lee and Seung 2001 multiplicative algorithm with Kullback-Leibler Divergence (KLD); Lee–Frobenius: Lee and Seung 2001 with Frobenius norm; nsNMF: non-smooth NMF with KLD; HC: hierarchical clustering with average linkage; CM: clustering with matching; PAM: partitioning around the medoids. a, Root mean squared error (RMSE) between original mutation assignment matrix and the fitted model. b, Sensitivity of signature assignment. c, Specificity of signature assignment. Detailed data for the analyses shown in this figure can be found in Source Data File 1.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Notes and Figs. 1–3.
Supplementary Tables
Tables containing the list of samples (Table 1), organ-specific mutational signatures (Tables 2 and 3), the reference signatures (Tables 4 and 5), the exposures of the organ-specific signatures in each sample (Tables 13–52), the conversion matrices used to convert organ-specific signature exposures into reference signature exposures (Tables 9 and 10), the reference signature exposures (Tables 6 and 7) and the HRDetect data and scores (Table 8). Supplementary Tables 53–110 contain the results of the drivers-signatures associations analysis, including sample sizes and results of two-sided Fisher exact tests. Supplementary Table 111 contains the organ-specific signatures extracted from the Hartwig metastatic cohort. Supplementary Tables 112 and 113 contain the full list of ICGC-PCAWG substitution and rearrangement catalogs.
Supplementary Software
R script files with the code used to perform the analysis in the article.
Source data
Source Data Fig. 1
Simulated mutational catalogs and signature exposures.
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Degasperi, A., Amarante, T.D., Czarnecki, J. et al. A practical framework and online tool for mutational signature analyses show intertissue variation and driver dependencies. Nat Cancer 1, 249–263 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-020-0027-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43018-020-0027-5
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