Precise inference of copy number alterations in tumor samples from SNP arrays.
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ABSTRACT: Motivation
The accurate detection of copy number alterations (CNAs) in human genomes is important for understanding susceptibility to cancer and mechanisms of tumor progression. CNA detection in tumors from single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping arrays is a challenging problem due to phenomena such as aneuploidy, stromal contamination, genomic waves and intra-tumor heterogeneity, issues that leading methods do not optimally address.Results
Here we introduce methods and software (PennCNV-tumor) for fast and accurate CNA detection using signal intensity data from SNP genotyping arrays. We estimate stromal contamination by applying a maximum likelihood approach over multiple discrete genomic intervals. By conditioning on signal intensity across the genome, our method accounts for both aneuploidy and genomic waves. Finally, our method uses a hidden Markov model to integrate multiple sources of information, including total and allele-specific signal intensity at each SNP, as well as physical maps to make posterior inferences of CNAs. Using real data from cancer cell-lines and patient tumors, we demonstrate substantial improvements in accuracy and computational efficiency compared with existing methods.
SUBMITTER: Chen GK
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3834792 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BackgroundGenotyping platforms such as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays are powerful tools to study genomic aberrations in cancer samples. Allele specific information from SNP arrays provides valuable information for interpreting copy number variation (CNV) and allelic imbalance including loss-of-heterozygosity (LOH) beyond that obtained from the total DNA signal available from array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) platforms. Several algorithms based on hidden Markov models (HMMs) have been designed to detect copy number changes and copy-neutral LOH making use of the allele information on SNP arrays. However heterogeneity in clinical samples, due to stromal contamination and somatic alterations, complicates analysis and interpretation of these data.MethodsWe have developed MixHMM, a novel hidden Markov model using hidden states based on chromosomal structural aberrations. MixHMM allows CNV detection for copy numbers up to 7 and allows more complete and accurate description of other forms of allelic imbalance, such as increased copy number LOH or imbalanced amplifications. MixHMM also incorporates a novel sample mixing model that allows detection of tumor CNV events in heterogeneous tumor samples, where cancer cells are mixed with a proportion of stromal cells.ConclusionsWe validate MixHMM and demonstrate its advantages with simulated samples, clinical tumor samples and a dilution series of mixed samples. We have shown that the CNVs of cancer cells in a tumor sample contaminated with up to 80% of stromal cells can be detected accurately using Illumina BeadChip and MixHMM.AvailabilityThe MixHMM is available as a Python package provided with some other useful tools at http://genecube.med.yale.edu:8080/MixHMM.
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Project description:Genomic instability in cancer leads to abnormal genome copy number alterations (CNA) as a mechanism underlying tumorigenesis. Using microarrays and other technologies, tumor CNA are detected by comparing tumor sample CN to normal reference sample CN. While advances in microarray technology have improved detection of copy number alterations, the increase in the number of measured signals, noise from array probes, variations in signal-to-noise ratio across batches and disparity across laboratories leads to significant limitations for the accurate identification of CNA regions when comparing tumor and normal samples.To address these limitations, we designed a novel "Virtual Normal" algorithm (VN), which allowed for construction of an unbiased reference signal directly from test samples within an experiment using any publicly available normal reference set as a baseline thus eliminating the need for an in-lab normal reference set.The algorithm was tested using an optimal, paired tumor/normal data set as well as previously uncharacterized pediatric malignant gliomas for which a normal reference set was not available. Using Affymetrix 250K Sty microarrays, we demonstrated improved signal-to-noise ratio and detected significant copy number alterations using the VN algorithm that were validated by independent PCR analysis of the target CNA regions.We developed and validated an algorithm to provide a virtual normal reference signal directly from tumor samples and minimize noise in the derivation of the raw CN signal. The algorithm reduces the variability of assays performed across different reagent and array batches, methods of sample preservation, multiple personnel, and among different laboratories. This approach may be valuable when matched normal samples are unavailable or the paired normal specimens have been subjected to variations in methods of preservation.
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Project description:There is an increasing interest in using single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping arrays for profiling chromosomal rearrangements in tumors, as they allow simultaneous detection of copy number and loss of heterozygosity with high resolution. Critical issues such as signal baseline shift due to aneuploidy, normal cell contamination, and the presence of GC content bias have been reported to dramatically alter SNP array signals and complicate accurate identification of aberrations in cancer genomes. To address these issues, we propose a novel Global Parameter Hidden Markov Model (GPHMM) to unravel tangled genotyping data generated from tumor samples. In contrast to other HMM methods, a distinct feature of GPHMM is that the issues mentioned above are quantitatively modeled by global parameters and integrated within the statistical framework. We developed an efficient EM algorithm for parameter estimation. We evaluated performance on three data sets and show that GPHMM can correctly identify chromosomal aberrations in tumor samples containing as few as 10% cancer cells. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the estimation of global parameters in GPHMM provides information about the biological characteristics of tumor samples and the quality of genotyping signal from SNP array experiments, which is helpful for data quality control and outlier detection in cohort studies.
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Project description:Affymetrix SNP arrays have been widely used for single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotype calling and DNA copy number variation inference. Although numerous methods have achieved high accuracy in these fields, most studies have paid little attention to the modeling of hybridization of probes to off-target allele sequences, which can affect the accuracy greatly. In this study, we address this issue and demonstrate that hybridization with mismatch nucleotides (HWMMN) occurs in all SNP probe-sets and has a critical effect on the estimation of allelic concentrations (ACs). We study sequence binding through binding free energy and then binding affinity, and develop a probe intensity composite representation (PICR) model. The PICR model allows the estimation of ACs at a given SNP through statistical regression. Furthermore, we demonstrate with cell-line data of known true copy numbers that the PICR model can achieve reasonable accuracy in copy number estimation at a single SNP locus, by using the ratio of the estimated AC of each sample to that of the reference sample, and can reveal subtle genotype structure of SNPs at abnormal loci. We also demonstrate with HapMap data that the PICR model yields accurate SNP genotype calls consistently across samples, laboratories and even across array platforms.
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Project description:The integration of genomic and epigenomic data is an increasingly popular approach for studying the complex mechanisms driving cancer development. We have developed a method for evaluating both methylation and copy number from high-density DNA methylation arrays. Comparing copy number data from Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChips and SNP arrays, we demonstrate that Infinium arrays detect copy number alterations with the sensitivity of SNP platforms. These results show that high-density methylation arrays provide a robust and economic platform for detecting copy number and methylation changes in a single experiment. Our method is available in the ChAMP Bioconductor package: http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/2.13/bioc/html/ChAMP.html.
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Project description:BackgroundCopy number alteration is a main genetic structural variation that plays an important role in tumor initialization and progression. Accurate detection of copy number alterations is necessary for discovering cancer-causing genes. Whole-exome sequencing has become a widely used technology in the last decade for detecting various types of genomic aberrations in cancer genomes. However, there are several major issues encountered in these detection problems, including normal cell contamination, tumor aneuploidy, and intra-tumor heterogeneity. Especially, deciphering the intra-tumor heterogeneity is imperative for identifying clonal and subclonal copy number alterations.ResultsWe introduce CloneCNA, a novel bioinformatics tool for efficiently addressing these issues and automatically detecting clonal and subclonal somatic copy number alterations from heterogeneous tumor samples. CloneCNA fully explores the log ratio of read counts between paired tumor-normal samples and tumor B allele frequency of germline heterozygous SNP positions, further employs efficient statistical models to quantitatively represent copy number status of tumor sample containing multiple clones. We examine CloneCNA on simulated heterogeneous and real tumor samples, and the results demonstrate that CloneCNA has higher power to detect copy number alterations than existing methods.ConclusionsCloneCNA, a novel algorithm is developed to efficiently and accurately identify somatic copy number alterations from heterogeneous tumor samples. We demonstrate the statistical framework of CloneCNA represents a remarkable advance for tumor whole-exome sequencing data. We expect that CloneCNA will promote cancer-focused studies for investigating the role of clonal evolution and elucidating critical events benefiting tumor tumourigenesis and progression.
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Project description:We propose a statistical framework, named genoCN, to simultaneously dissect copy number states and genotypes using high-density SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) arrays. There are at least two types of genomic DNA copy number differences: copy number variations (CNVs) and copy number aberrations (CNAs). While CNVs are naturally occurring and inheritable, CNAs are acquired somatic alterations most often observed in tumor tissues only. CNVs tend to be short and more sparsely located in the genome compared with CNAs. GenoCN consists of two components, genoCNV and genoCNA, designed for CNV and CNA studies, respectively. In contrast to most existing methods, genoCN is more flexible in that the model parameters are estimated from the data instead of being decided a priori. GenoCNA also incorporates two important strategies for CNA studies. First, the effects of tissue contamination are explicitly modeled. Second, if SNP arrays are performed for both tumor and normal tissues of one individual, the genotype calls from normal tissue are used to study CNAs in tumor tissue. We evaluated genoCN by applications to 162 HapMap individuals and a brain tumor (glioblastoma) dataset and showed that our method can successfully identify both types of copy number differences and produce high-quality genotype calls.
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Project description:Submicroscopic changes in chromosomal DNA copy number dosage are common and have been implicated in many heritable diseases and cancers. Recent high-throughput technologies have a resolution that permits the detection of segmental changes in DNA copy number that span thousands of base pairs in the genome. Genomewide association studies (GWAS) may simultaneously screen for copy number phenotype and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) phenotype associations as part of the analytic strategy. However, genomewide array analyses are particularly susceptible to batch effects as the logistics of preparing DNA and processing thousands of arrays often involves multiple laboratories and technicians, or changes over calendar time to the reagents and laboratory equipment. Failure to adjust for batch effects can lead to incorrect inference and requires inefficient post hoc quality control procedures to exclude regions that are associated with batch. Our work extends previous model-based approaches for copy number estimation by explicitly modeling batch and using shrinkage to improve locus-specific estimates of copy number uncertainty. Key features of this approach include the use of biallelic genotype calls from experimental data to estimate batch-specific and locus-specific parameters of background and signal without the requirement of training data. We illustrate these ideas using a study of bipolar disease and a study of chromosome 21 trisomy. The former has batch effects that dominate much of the observed variation in the quantile-normalized intensities, while the latter illustrates the robustness of our approach to a data set in which approximately 27% of the samples have altered copy number. Locus-specific estimates of copy number can be plotted on the copy number scale to investigate mosaicism and guide the choice of appropriate downstream approaches for smoothing the copy number as a function of physical position. The software is open source and implemented in the R package crlmm at Bioconductor (http:www.bioconductor.org).
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Project description:BackgroundCopy Number Variations (CNVs) have been shown important in both normal phenotypic variability and disease susceptibility, and are increasingly accepted as another important source of genetic variation complementary to single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP). Comprehensive identification and cataloging of pig CNVs would be of benefit to the functional analyses of genome variation.ResultsIn this study, we performed a genome-wide CNV detection based on the Porcine SNP60 genotyping data of 474 pigs from three pure breed populations (Yorkshire, Landrace and Songliao Black) and one Duroc × Erhualian crossbred population. A total of 382 CNV regions (CNVRs) across genome were identified, which cover 95.76Mb of the pig genome and correspond to 4.23% of the autosomal genome sequence. The length of these CNVRs ranged from 5.03 to 2,702.7kb with an average of 250.7kb, and the frequencies of them varied from 0.42 to 20.87%. These CNVRs contains 1468 annotated genes, which possess a great variety of molecular functions, making them a promising resource for exploring the genetic basis of phenotypic variation within and among breeds. To confirmation of these findings, 18 CNVRs representing different predicted status and frequencies were chosen for validation via quantitative real time PCR (qPCR). Accordingly, 12 (66.67%) of them was successfully confirmed.ConclusionsOur results demonstrated that currently available Porcine SNP60 BeadChip can be used to capture CNVs efficiently. Our study firstly provides a comprehensive map of copy number variation in the pig genome, which would be of help for understanding the pig genome and provide preliminary foundation for investigating the association between various phenotypes and CNVs.
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Project description:Phylogenetic trees based on copy number profiles from multiple samples of a patient are helpful to understand cancer evolution. Here, we develop a new maximum likelihood method, CNETML, to infer phylogenies from such data. CNETML is the first program to jointly infer the tree topology, node ages, and mutation rates from total copy numbers of longitudinal samples. Our extensive simulations suggest CNETML performs well on copy numbers relative to ploidy and under slight violation of model assumptions. The application of CNETML to real data generates results consistent with previous discoveries and provides novel early copy number events for further investigation.
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