Quantifying patterns of tumor evolution

Abstract:: Abstract Cancer has long been understood as a somatic evolutionary process, but many details of tumor progression remain elusive. Here, I will talk about computational methods to infer evolutionary pathways leading to tumor heterogeneity. I will start by discussing how to quantify intra-patient heterogeneity by rigorous analysis of copy-number profiles from multiple patient samples. Using a study in ovarian cancer I will describe how summary statistics of phylogenetic quantification of genetic heterogeneity can predict patient survival. Then, I will present a probabilistic framework to reconstruct intra-tumor evolution from data obtained by bulk bisulfite sequencing of mixed tumor samples or single cell genomes. Our approach jointly estimates the number and composition of clones in the sample as well as the most likely tree connecting them. I will finish by describing ongoing work to reconstruct patterns of clonal evolution from single cell sequencing data. Citation Format: Florian Markowetz. Quantifying patterns of tumor evolution. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Tumor Metastasis; 2015 Nov 30-Dec 3; Austin, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(7 Suppl):Abstract nr IA20.

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