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Immune system diversity is generated by V(D)J recombination, leading to clonal T-cell lineages. Here the authors investigate the events leading to T-cell diversity through the use of a modified PCR technique combined with deep sequencing.

Zinc-finger nucleases allow targeted genetic modification at loci chosen by the investigator, but the extent of their off-target activity—which could be toxic to cells—has not been evaluated experimentally on a genome-wide scale. Gabriel et al. document the off- and on-target activity of zinc-finger nucleases using lentiviral vectors to tag integration sites.

Transduced hematopoietic stem cells can benefit patients with X-linked chronic granulomatous disease (a genetic immunodeficiency), but it's not risk free. In two treated patients, insertional activation of MDS1–EVI1, PRDM16 and SETBP1 markedly increased the number of transduced cells in the blood, leading to oligoclonal hematopoiesis, monosomy 7 and a myelodysplastic syndrome (pages 163–165).

Insight into risks posed by corrective gene therapy comes from an immunodeficient mouse model.

An adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector encoding a variant of human lipoprotein lipase was recently approved in Europe as the first gene therapy for the treatment of LPL deficiency. Here Manfred Schmidt and his colleagues report their analysis of AAV integration sites after injection of the gene therapy construct in LPL-deficient patients and in mice.

Understanding deregulation of biological pathways in cancer can provide insight into disease etiology and potential therapies. Here, as part of the PanCancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) consortium, the authors present pathway and network analysis of 2583 whole cancer genomes from 27 tumour types.

Analyses of 2,658 whole genomes across 38 types of cancer identify the contribution of non-coding point mutations and structural variants to driving cancer.

Analysis of cancer genome sequencing data has enabled the discovery of driver mutations. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium the authors present DriverPower, a software package that identifies coding and non-coding driver mutations within cancer whole genomes via consideration of mutational burden and functional impact evidence.

Multi-omics datasets pose major challenges to data interpretation and hypothesis generation owing to their high-dimensional molecular profiles. Here, the authors develop ActivePathways method, which uses data fusion techniques for integrative pathway analysis of multi-omics data and candidate gene discovery.

Focusing on two ill-characterized subtypes of medulloblastoma (group 3 and group 4), this study identifies prevalent genomic structural variants that are restricted to these two subtypes and independently bring together coding regions of GFI1 family proto-oncogenes with active enhancer elements, leading to their mutually exclusive oncogenic activation.

Chordomas are rare bone tumors with limited therapeutic options. Here, the authors identify molecular alterations associated with defective homologous recombination DNA repair in advanced chordomas and report prolonged response in a patient treated with a PARP inhibitor, which later acquired resistance due to a newly gained PARP1 mutation.

There’s an emerging body of evidence to show how biological sex impacts cancer incidence, treatment and underlying biology. Here, using a large pan-cancer dataset, the authors further highlight how sex differences shape the cancer genome.

In somatic cells the mechanisms maintaining the chromosome ends are normally inactivated; however, cancer cells can re-activate these pathways to support continuous growth. Here, the authors characterize the telomeric landscapes across tumour types and identify genomic alterations associated with different telomere maintenance mechanisms.

With the generation of large pan-cancer whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing projects, a question remains about how comparable these datasets are. Here, using The Cancer Genome Atlas samples analysed as part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes project, the authors explore the concordance of mutations called by whole exome sequencing and whole genome sequencing techniques.

The flagship paper of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Consortium describes the generation of the integrative analyses of 2,658 cancer whole genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types, the structures for international data sharing and standardized analyses, and the main scientific findings from across the consortium studies.

Integrative analyses of transcriptome and whole-genome sequencing data for 1,188 tumours across 27 types of cancer are used to provide a comprehensive catalogue of RNA-level alterations in cancer.

Whole-genome sequencing data from more than 2,500 cancers of 38 tumour types reveal 16 signatures that can be used to classify somatic structural variants, highlighting the diversity of genomic rearrangements in cancer.

Viral pathogen load in cancer genomes is estimated through analysis of sequencing data from 2,656 tumors across 35 cancer types using multiple pathogen-detection pipelines, identifying viruses in 382 genomic and 68 transcriptome datasets.

A pan-cancer genomic analysis reports the effects of structural variations on chromatin domains (TADs). Most TAD disruptions do not result in appreciable changes in expression of nearby genes.

An analysis of 2,954 genomes from 38 cancer subtypes identified 19,166 retrotransposition events in 35% of samples. Aberrant LINE-1 retrotranspositions can lead to the deletion of tumor-suppressor genes as well as the amplification of oncogenes.

Whole-genome sequencing data for 2,778 cancer samples from 2,658 unique donors across 38 cancer types is used to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cancer, revealing that driver mutations can precede diagnosis by several years to decades.

Some cancer patients first present with metastases where the location of the primary is unidentified; these are difficult to treat. In this study, using machine learning, the authors develop a method to determine the tissue of origin of a cancer based on whole sequencing data.

The authors present SVclone, a computational method for inferring the cancer cell fraction of structural variants from whole-genome sequencing data.

Many tumours exhibit hypoxia (low oxygen) and hypoxic tumours often respond poorly to therapy. Here, the authors quantify hypoxia in 1188 tumours from 27 cancer types, showing elevated hypoxia links to increased mutational load, directing evolutionary trajectories.

The characterization of 4,645 whole-genome and 19,184 exome sequences, covering most types of cancer, identifies 81 single-base substitution, doublet-base substitution and small-insertion-and-deletion mutational signatures, providing a systematic overview of the mutational processes that contribute to cancer development.

In this study the authors consider the structural variants (SVs) present within cancer cases of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium. They report hundreds of genes, including known cancer-associated genes for which the nearby presence of a SV breakpoint is associated with altered expression.

Cancers evolve as they progress under differing selective pressures. Here, as part of the ICGC/TCGA Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium, the authors present the method TrackSig the estimates evolutionary trajectories of somatic mutational processes from single bulk tumour data.

Analyses of genomes from 914 children, adolescents, and young adults provide a comprehensive resource of genomic alterations across a spectrum of common childhood cancers.

The mechanisms that shape the regulatory T cell repertoire in patients with cancer are not completely understood. Here, the authors observe that, in breast cancer patients, tumor-resident regulatory T cells do not show clonal relationship with their circulating counterpart, but share a common origin with intratumoral antigen-experienced conventional T cells.

Single-cell analysis of COVID-19 patient samples identifies activated immune pathways that correlate with severe disease.

Adverse events stemming from the use of retroviral vectors in humans has prompted the search for methods predicting the fate and biological consequences of gene-modified cells after vector insertion. Methods of integration site analysis, such as linear amplification-mediated PCR (LAM-PCR), rely on use of restriction enzymes and identify only a fraction of all genomic integrants. This report describes a non–restriction enzyme–based LAM-PCR technique that provides comprehensive, unbiased integration site analysis.

The first phase 2 gene therapy trial for HIV-1 has shown some promising signs. There's a long way to go before this would be a viable approach in people with HIV—this trial did not show a statistically significant difference in viral load at the primary end point–but other analyses did reveal that the gene therapy seemed to have a modest, but statistically significant, effect at reducing viral load in the treated subjects versus the placebo arm. The study also provides some clues about what to improve in the future.

The molecular genetic landscape of leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is largely unknown. Here, the authors identify frequent DNA copy number alterations, whole-genome duplication, TP53 and RB1 inactivation, alternative telomere lengthening, and genomic imprints of defective DNA repair via homologous recombination as a potential therapeutic target in LMS patients.

Genome-wide, unbiased methods provide a comprehensive picture of off-target cleavage by engineered nucleases.

Replication-deficient lentiviral vectors are used as insertional mutagens for cancer gene discovery in the mouse. They are applied to identify oncogenes in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Medulloblastoma is the most common brain tumour in children; using whole-genome sequencing of tumour samples the authors show that the clinically challenging Group 3 and 4 tumours can be tetraploid, and reveal the expression of the first medulloblastoma fusion genes identified.

Analysis of whole-genome sequencing data across 2,658 tumors spanning 38 cancer types shows that chromothripsis is pervasive, with a frequency of more than 50% in several cancer types, contributing to oncogene amplification, gene inactivation and cancer genome evolution.

Analysis of mitochondrial genomes (mtDNA) by using whole-genome sequencing data from 2,658 cancer samples across 38 cancer types identifies hypermutated mtDNA cases, frequent somatic nuclear transfer of mtDNA and high variability of mtDNA copy number in many cancers.

Efficient, large-scale genomic analysis is facilitated on the cloud by a computational tool with error-diagnosing and self-healing capabilities.

Stefan Pfister and the ICGC PedBrain Tumor Project report whole-genome sequencing of 96 pilocytic astrocytomas. They identify recurrent activating mutations in FGFR1 and PTPN11 and novel NTRK2 fusion genes.