Work

Complexity and algorithms for copy-number evolution problems

Year: 2017
Type: article
Abstract: Cancer is an evolutionary process characterized by the accumulation of somatic mutations in a population of cells that form a tumor. One frequent type of mutations is copy number aberrations, which alter the number of copies of genomic regions. The number of copies of each position along a chromosome constitutes the chromosome’s copy-number profile. Understanding how such profiles evolve in cancer can assist in both diagnosis and prognosis. We model the evolution of a tumor by segmental deletions and amplifications, and gauge distance from profile $$\mathbf {a}$$ to $$\mathbf {b}$$ by the minimum number of events needed to transform $$\mathbf {a}$$ into $$\mathbf {b}$$ . Given two profiles, our first problem aims to find a parental profile that minimizes the sum of distances to its children. Given k profiles, the second, more general problem, seeks a phylogenetic tree, whose k leaves are labeled by the k given profiles and whose internal vertices are labeled by ancestral profiles such that the sum of edge distances is minimum. For the former problem we give a pseudo-polynomial dynamic programming algorithm that is linear in the profile length, and an integer linear program formulation. For the latter problem we show it is NP-hard and give an integer linear program formulation that scales to practical problem instance sizes. We assess the efficiency and quality of our algorithms on simulated instances. https://github.com/raphael-group/CNT-ILP
Language: English
Subfield: Genetics
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,490
OpenAlex ID: W2614716373
FWCI: 2.354
Cites: 18
Cited by: 34
Related to: 10