title: POPULATION GENETICS OF NEUTRAL MUTATIONS IN EXPONENTIALLY GROWING CANCER CELL POPULATIONS.
abstract: In order to analyze data from cancer genome sequencing projects, we need to be able to distinguish causative, or "driver," mutations from "passenger" mutations that have no selective effect. Toward this end, we prove results concerning the frequency of neutural mutations in exponentially growing multitype branching processes that have been widely used in cancer modeling. Our results yield a simple new population genetics result for the site frequency spectrum of a sample from an exponentially growing population.
authors.affiliation: DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS DUKE UNIVERSITY BOX 90320 DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA 27708-0320 USA rtd@math.duke.edu.
authors.forename: Rick
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Durrett
keywords: Exponentially growing population; cancer model; multitype branching process; site frequency spectrum