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Evolutionary triage governs fitness in driver and passenger mutations and suggests targeting never mutations.

ABSTRACT: Genetic and epigenetic changes in cancer cells are typically divided into 'drivers' and 'passengers'. Drug development strategies target driver mutations, but inter- and intratumoral heterogeneity usually results in emergence of resistance. Here we model intratumoral evolution in the context of a fecundity/survivorship trade-off. Simulations demonstrate that the fitness value of any genetic change is not fixed but dependent on evolutionary triage governed by initial cell properties, current selection forces and prior genotypic/phenotypic trajectories. We demonstrate that spatial variations in molecular properties of tumour cells are the result of changes in environmental selection forces such as blood flow. Simulated therapies targeting fitness-increasing (driver) mutations usually decrease the tumour burden but almost inevitably fail due to population heterogeneity. An alternative strategy targets gene mutations that are never observed. Because up or downregulation of these genes unconditionally reduces cellular fitness, they are eliminated by evolutionary triage but can be exploited for targeted therapy.

SUBMITTER: Gatenby RA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4260773 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Evolutionary triage governs fitness in driver and passenger mutations and suggests targeting never mutations.

Gatenby R A RA Cunningham J J JJ Brown J S JS

Nature communications 20141119

Genetic and epigenetic changes in cancer cells are typically divided into 'drivers' and 'passengers'. Drug development strategies target driver mutations, but inter- and intratumoral heterogeneity usually results in emergence of resistance. Here we model intratumoral evolution in the context of a fecundity/survivorship trade-off. Simulations demonstrate that the fitness value of any genetic change is not fixed but dependent on evolutionary triage governed by initial cell properties, current sele ...[more]

PMID: 25407411

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Project description:MotivationNext-generation sequencing technologies have accelerated the discovery of single nucleotide variants in the human genome, stimulating the development of predictors for classifying which of these variants are likely functional in disease, and which neutral. Recently, we proposed CScape, a method for discriminating between cancer driver mutations and presumed benign variants. For the neutral class, this method relied on benign germline variants found in the 1000 Genomes Project database. Discrimination could, therefore, be influenced by the distinction of germline versus somatic, rather than neutral versus disease driver. This motivates this article in which we consider predictive discrimination between recurrent and rare somatic single point mutations based solely on using cancer data, and the distinction between these two somatic classes and germline single point mutations.ResultsFor somatic point mutations in coding and non-coding regions of the genome, we propose CScape-somatic, an integrative classifier for predictively discriminating between recurrent and rare variants in the human cancer genome. In this study, we use purely cancer genome data and investigate the distinction between minimal occurrence and significantly recurrent somatic single point mutations in the human cancer genome. We show that this type of predictive distinction can give novel insight, and may deliver more meaningful prediction in both coding and non-coding regions of the cancer genome. Tested on somatic mutations, CScape-somatic outperforms alternative methods, reaching 74% balanced accuracy in coding regions and 69% in non-coding regions, whereas even higher accuracy may be achieved using thresholds to isolate high-confidence predictions.Availability and implementationPredictions and software are available at http://CScape-somatic.biocompute.org.uk/.Contactmark.f.rogers.phd@gmail.com or C.Campbell@bristol.ac.uk.Supplementary informationSupplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Project description:BackgroundAPOBEC-driven mutagenesis and functional positive selection of mutated genes may synergistically drive the higher frequency of some hotspot driver mutations compared to other mutations within the same gene, as we reported for FGFR3 S249C. Only a few APOBEC-associated driver hotspot mutations have been identified in bladder cancer (BCa). Here, we systematically looked for and characterised APOBEC-associated hotspots in BCa.MethodsWe analysed 602 published exome-sequenced BCas, for part of which gene expression data were also available. APOBEC-associated hotspots were identified by motif-mapping, mutation signature fitting and APOBEC-mediated mutagenesis comparison. Joint analysis of DNA hairpin stability and gene expression was performed to predict driver or passenger hotspots. Aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) activity was calculated based on its target genes expression. Effects of AhR knockout/inhibition on BCa cell viability were analysed.ResultsWe established a panel of 44 APOBEC-associated hotspot mutations in BCa, which accounted for about half of the hotspot mutations. Fourteen of them overlapped with the hotspots found in other cancer types with high APOBEC activity. They mostly occurred in the DNA lagging-strand templates and the loop of DNA hairpins. APOBEC-associated hotspots presented systematically a higher prevalence than the other mutations within each APOBEC-target gene, independently of their functional impact. A combined analysis of DNA loop stability and gene expression allowed to distinguish known passenger from known driver hotspot mutations in BCa, including loss-of-function mutations affecting tumour suppressor genes, and to predict new candidate drivers, such as AHR Q383H. We further characterised AHR Q383H as an activating driver mutation associated with high AhR activity in luminal tumours. High AhR activity was also found in tumours presenting amplifications of AHR and its co-receptor ARNT. We finally showed that BCa cells presenting those different genetic alterations were sensitive to AhR inhibition.ConclusionsOur study identified novel potential drivers within APOBEC-associated hotspot mutations in BCa reinforcing the importance of APOBEC mutagenesis in BCa. It could allow a better understanding of BCa biology and aetiology and have clinical implications such as AhR as a potential therapeutic target. Our results also challenge the dogma that all hotspot mutations are drivers and mostly gain-of-function mutations affecting oncogenes.

Project description:BackgroundIn somatic cancer genomes, delineating genuine driver mutations against a background of multiple passenger events is a challenging task. The difficulty of determining function from sequence data and the low frequency of mutations are increasingly hindering the search for novel, less common cancer drivers. The accumulation of extensive amounts of data on somatic point and copy number alterations necessitates the development of systematic methods for driver mutation analysis.ResultsWe introduce a framework for detecting driver mutations via functional network analysis, which is applied to individual genomes and does not require pooling multiple samples. It probabilistically evaluates 1) functional network links between different mutations in the same genome and 2) links between individual mutations and known cancer pathways. In addition, it can employ correlations of mutation patterns in pairs of genes. The method was used to analyze genomic alterations in two TCGA datasets, one for glioblastoma multiforme and another for ovarian carcinoma, which were generated using different approaches to mutation profiling. The proportions of drivers among the reported de novo point mutations in these cancers were estimated to be 57.8% and 16.8%, respectively. The both sets also included extended chromosomal regions with synchronous duplications or losses of multiple genes. We identified putative copy number driver events within many such segments. Finally, we summarized seemingly disparate mutations and discovered a functional network of collagen modifications in the glioblastoma. In order to select the most efficient network for use with this method, we used a novel, ROC curve-based procedure for benchmarking different network versions by their ability to recover pathway membership.ConclusionsThe results of our network-based procedure were in good agreement with published gold standard sets of cancer genes and were shown to complement and expand frequency-based driver analyses. On the other hand, three sequence-based methods applied to the same data yielded poor agreement with each other and with our results. We review the difference in driver proportions discovered by different sequencing approaches and discuss the functional roles of novel driver mutations. The software used in this work and the global network of functional couplings are publicly available at http://research.scilifelab.se/andrej_alexeyenko/downloads.html.

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Evolutionary triage governs fitness in driver and passenger mutations and suggests targeting never mutations.

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Evolutionary triage governs fitness in driver and passenger mutations and suggests targeting never mutations.

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