title: Estimating the order of mutations during tumorigenesis from tumor genome sequencing data.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Tumors are thought to develop and evolve through a sequence of genetic and epigenetic somatic alterations to progenitor cells. Early stages of human tumorigenesis are hidden from view. Here, we develop a method for inferring some aspects of the order of mutational events during tumorigenesis based on genome sequencing data for a set of tumors. This method does not assume that the sequence of driver alterations is the same for each tumor, but enables the degree of similarity or difference in the sequence to be evaluated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  To evaluate the new method, we applied it to colon cancer tumor sequencing data and the results are consistent with the multi-step tumorigenesis model previously developed based on comparing stages of cancer. We then applied the new method to DNA sequencing data for a set of lung cancers. The model may be a useful tool for better understanding the process of tumorigenesis.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  The software is available at: http://linus.nci.nih.gov/Data/YounA/OrderMutation.zip.
authors.affiliation: Biometric Research Branch, National Cancer Institute, 9000 Rockville Pike, MSC 7434, Bethesda, MD 20892-7434, USA.
authors.forename: Ahrim
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Youn
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Simon
mesh_terms: D002471:Cell Transformation, Neoplastic / Q000235:genetics*; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000379:methods; D004252:DNA Mutational Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D052138:Genes, Neoplasm; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics*; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009154:Mutation; D012984:Software