SPhyR: tumor phylogeny estimation from single-cell sequencing data under loss and error.

ABSTRACT:

Motivation

Cancer is characterized by intra-tumor heterogeneity, the presence of distinct cell populations with distinct complements of somatic mutations, which include single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) and copy-number aberrations (CNAs). Single-cell sequencing technology enables one to study these cell populations at single-cell resolution. Phylogeny estimation algorithms that employ appropriate evolutionary models are key to understanding the evolutionary mechanisms behind intra-tumor heterogeneity.

Results

We introduce Single-cell Phylogeny Reconstruction (SPhyR), a method for tumor phylogeny estimation from single-cell sequencing data. In light of frequent loss of SNVs due to CNAs in cancer, SPhyR employs the k-Dollo evolutionary model, where a mutation can only be gained once but lost k times. Underlying SPhyR is a novel combinatorial characterization of solutions as constrained integer matrix completions, based on a connection to the cladistic multi-state perfect phylogeny problem. SPhyR outperforms existing methods on simulated data and on a metastatic colorectal cancer.

Availability and implementation

SPhyR is available on https://github.com/elkebir-group/SPhyR.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

SUBMITTER: El-Kebir M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6153375 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature