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Chromothripsis in human breast cancer (HIPO K26K/H017/A017)

Chromothripsis is a form of genome instability, by which a presumably single catastrophic event generates extensive genomic rearrangements of one or a few chromosome(s). Widely assumed to be an early event in tumor development, this phenomenon plays a prominent role in tumor onset. We analyzed chromothripsis in 252 human breast cancers from two patient cohorts (149 metastatic breast cancers, 63 untreated primary tumors, 29 local relapses, 11 longitudinal pairs) using whole-genome and whole-exome sequencing. We showed that chromothripsis affects a substantial proportion of human breast cancers, with a prevalence over 60% in a cohort of metastatic cases and 25% in a cohort comprising predominantly luminal breast cancers (cohorts from HIPO K26K and H017 and A017). In the vast majority of cases, multiple chromosomes per tumor are affected, with most chromothriptic events on chromosomes 11 and 17 including, among other significantly altered drivers, CCND1, ERBB2, CDK12 and BRCA1. Importantly, chromothripsis generates recurrent fusions that drive tumor development. Chromothripsis-related rearrangements are linked with univocal mutational signatures, with clusters of point mutations due to kataegis in close proximity to the genomic breakpoints, and with the activation of specific signaling pathways. Analysis of the temporal order of events in tumors with and without chromothripsis as well as longitudinal analysis of chromothriptic patterns in tumor pairs revealed important insights on the role of chromothriptic chromosomes in tumor evolution.

Click on a Dataset ID in the table below to learn more, and to find out who to contact about access to these data

Dataset ID Description Technology Samples
EGAD00001007563 HiSeq X Ten Illumina HiSeq 2000 Illumina HiSeq 2500 Illumina HiSeq 4000 516
EGAD00001008906 HiSeq X Ten 5
EGAD00001009274 HiSeq X Ten Illumina HiSeq 4000 319
Publications Citations
Association of mutation signature effectuating processes with mutation hotspots in driver genes and non-coding regions.
Nat Commun 13: 2022 178
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