1
|
Ivanovic S, El-Kebir M. Modeling and predicting cancer clonal evolution with reinforcement learning. Genome Res 2023; 33:1078-1088. [PMID: 37344104 PMCID: PMC10538496 DOI: 10.1101/gr.277672.123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/06/2023] [Accepted: 06/09/2023] [Indexed: 06/23/2023]
Abstract
Cancer results from an evolutionary process that typically yields multiple clones with varying sets of mutations within the same tumor. Accurately modeling this process is key to understanding and predicting cancer evolution. Here, we introduce clone to mutation (CloMu), a flexible and low-parameter tree generative model of cancer evolution. CloMu uses a two-layer neural network trained via reinforcement learning to determine the probability of new mutations based on the existing mutations on a clone. CloMu supports several prediction tasks, including the determination of evolutionary trajectories, tree selection, causality and interchangeability between mutations, and mutation fitness. Importantly, previous methods support only some of these tasks, and many suffer from overfitting on data sets with a large number of mutations. Using simulations, we show that CloMu either matches or outperforms current methods on a wide variety of prediction tasks. In particular, for simulated data with interchangeable mutations, current methods are unable to uncover causal relationships as effectively as CloMu. On breast cancer and leukemia cohorts, we show that CloMu determines similarities and causal relationships between mutations as well as the fitness of mutations. We validate CloMu's inferred mutation fitness values for the leukemia cohort by comparing them to clonal proportion data not used during training, showing high concordance. In summary, CloMu's low-parameter model facilitates a wide range of prediction tasks regarding cancer evolution on increasingly available cohort-level data sets.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Stefan Ivanovic
- Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
| | - Mohammed El-Kebir
- Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA;
- Cancer Center at Illinois, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Luo XG, Kuipers J, Beerenwinkel N. Joint inference of exclusivity patterns and recurrent trajectories from tumor mutation trees. Nat Commun 2023; 14:3676. [PMID: 37344522 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39400-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2022] [Accepted: 06/12/2023] [Indexed: 06/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Cancer progression is an evolutionary process shaped by both deterministic and stochastic forces. Multi-region and single-cell sequencing of tumors enable high-resolution reconstruction of the mutational history of each tumor and highlight the extensive diversity across tumors and patients. Resolving the interactions among mutations and recovering recurrent evolutionary processes may offer greater opportunities for successful therapeutic strategies. To this end, we present a novel probabilistic framework, called TreeMHN, for the joint inference of exclusivity patterns and recurrent trajectories from a cohort of intra-tumor phylogenetic trees. Through simulations, we show that TreeMHN outperforms existing alternatives that can only focus on one aspect of the task. By analyzing datasets of blood, lung, and breast cancers, we find the most likely evolutionary trajectories and mutational patterns, consistent with and enriching our current understanding of tumorigenesis. Moreover, TreeMHN facilitates the prediction of tumor evolution and provides probabilistic measures on the next mutational events given a tumor tree, a prerequisite for evolution-guided treatment strategies.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Xiang Ge Luo
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058, Basel, Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Jack Kuipers
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058, Basel, Switzerland
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058, Basel, Switzerland
| | - Niko Beerenwinkel
- Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058, Basel, Switzerland.
- SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Mattenstrasse 26, 4058, Basel, Switzerland.
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Zhu X, Zhao W, Zhou Z, Gu X. Unraveling the Drivers of Tumorigenesis in the Context of Evolution: Theoretical Models and Bioinformatics Tools. J Mol Evol 2023:10.1007/s00239-023-10117-0. [PMID: 37246992 DOI: 10.1007/s00239-023-10117-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/30/2022] [Accepted: 05/09/2023] [Indexed: 05/30/2023]
Abstract
Cancer originates from somatic cells that have accumulated mutations. These mutations alter the phenotype of the cells, allowing them to escape homeostatic regulation that maintains normal cell numbers. The emergence of malignancies is an evolutionary process in which the random accumulation of somatic mutations and sequential selection of dominant clones cause cancer cells to proliferate. The development of technologies such as high-throughput sequencing has provided a powerful means to measure subclonal evolutionary dynamics across space and time. Here, we review the patterns that may be observed in cancer evolution and the methods available for quantifying the evolutionary dynamics of cancer. An improved understanding of the evolutionary trajectories of cancer will enable us to explore the molecular mechanism of tumorigenesis and to design tailored treatment strategies.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Xunuo Zhu
- Innovation Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Anti-Cancer Drug Research, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
| | - Wenyi Zhao
- Innovation Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Anti-Cancer Drug Research, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China
| | - Zhan Zhou
- Innovation Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Anti-Cancer Drug Research, College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
- The Fourth Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Yiwu, 322000, China.
- Alibaba-Zhejiang University Joint Research Center of Future Digital Healthcare, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
| | - Xun Gu
- Department of Genetics, Development and Cell Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA.
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Lee ND, Kaveh K, Bozic I. Clonal interactions in cancer: integrating quantitative models with experimental and clinical data. Semin Cancer Biol 2023; 92:61-73. [PMID: 37023969 DOI: 10.1016/j.semcancer.2023.04.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2022] [Revised: 02/16/2023] [Accepted: 04/03/2023] [Indexed: 04/08/2023]
Abstract
Tumors consist of different genotypically distinct subpopulations-or subclones-of cells. These subclones can influence neighboring clones in a process called "clonal interaction." Conventionally, research on driver mutations in cancer has focused on their cell-autonomous effects that lead to an increase in fitness of the cells containing the driver. Recently, with the advent of improved experimental and computational technologies for investigating tumor heterogeneity and clonal dynamics, new studies have shown the importance of clonal interactions in cancer initiation, progression, and metastasis. In this review we provide an overview of clonal interactions in cancer, discussing key discoveries from a diverse range of approaches to cancer biology research. We discuss common types of clonal interactions, such as cooperation and competition, its mechanisms, and the overall effect on tumorigenesis, with important implications for tumor heterogeneity, resistance to treatment, and tumor suppression. Quantitative models-in coordination with cell culture and animal model experiments-have played a vital role in investigating the nature of clonal interactions and the complex clonal dynamics they generate. We present mathematical and computational models that can be used to represent clonal interactions and provide examples of the roles they have played in identifying and quantifying the strength of clonal interactions in experimental systems. Clonal interactions have proved difficult to observe in clinical data; however, several very recent quantitative approaches enable their detection. We conclude by discussing ways in which researchers can further integrate quantitative methods with experimental and clinical data to elucidate the critical-and often surprising-roles of clonal interactions in human cancers.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Nathan D Lee
- Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America
| | - Kamran Kaveh
- Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America
| | - Ivana Bozic
- Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America; Herbold Computational Biology Program, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, United States of America.
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Pellegrina L, Vandin F. Discovering significant evolutionary trajectories in cancer phylogenies. Bioinformatics 2022; 38:ii49-ii55. [PMID: 36124798 DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btac467] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
MOTIVATION Tumors are the result of a somatic evolutionary process leading to substantial intra-tumor heterogeneity. Single-cell and multi-region sequencing enable the detailed characterization of the clonal architecture of tumors and have highlighted its extensive diversity across tumors. While several computational methods have been developed to characterize the clonal composition and the evolutionary history of tumors, the identification of significantly conserved evolutionary trajectories across tumors is still a major challenge. RESULTS We present a new algorithm, MAximal tumor treeS TRajectOries (MASTRO), to discover significantly conserved evolutionary trajectories in cancer. MASTRO discovers all conserved trajectories in a collection of phylogenetic trees describing the evolution of a cohort of tumors, allowing the discovery of conserved complex relations between alterations. MASTRO assesses the significance of the trajectories using a conditional statistical test that captures the coherence in the order in which alterations are observed in different tumors. We apply MASTRO to data from nonsmall-cell lung cancer bulk sequencing and to acute myeloid leukemia data from single-cell panel sequencing, and find significant evolutionary trajectories recapitulating and extending the results reported in the original studies. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION MASTRO is available at https://github.com/VandinLab/MASTRO. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Leonardo Pellegrina
- Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, Padova, 35129, Italy
| | - Fabio Vandin
- Department of Information Engineering, University of Padova, Padova, 35129, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Kowalewski A, Zdrenka M, Grzanka D, Szylberg Ł. Targeting the Deterministic Evolutionary Trajectories of Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma. Cancers (Basel) 2020; 12:E3300. [PMID: 33182233 PMCID: PMC7695334 DOI: 10.3390/cancers12113300] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2020] [Revised: 10/31/2020] [Accepted: 11/07/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The emergence of clinical resistance to currently available systemic therapies forces us to rethink our approach to clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). The ability to influence ccRCC evolution by inhibiting processes that propel it or manipulating its course may be an adequate strategy. There are seven deterministic evolutionary trajectories of ccRCC, which correlate with clinical phenotypes. We suspect that each trajectory has its own unique weaknesses that could be exploited. In this review, we have summarized recent advances in the treatment of ccRCC and demonstrated how to improve systemic therapies from the evolutionary perspective. Since there are only a few evolutionary trajectories in ccRCC, it appears feasible to use them as potential biomarkers for guiding intervention and surveillance. We believe that the presented patient stratification could help predict future steps of malignant progression, thereby informing optimal and personalized clinical decisions.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Adam Kowalewski
- Department of Clinical Pathomorphology, Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, 85-067 Bydgoszcz, Poland; (D.G.); (Ł.S.)
| | - Marek Zdrenka
- Department of Tumor Pathology and Pathomorphology, Oncology Centre-Prof. Franciszek Łukaszczyk Memorial Hospital, 85-796 Bydgoszcz, Poland;
| | - Dariusz Grzanka
- Department of Clinical Pathomorphology, Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, 85-067 Bydgoszcz, Poland; (D.G.); (Ł.S.)
| | - Łukasz Szylberg
- Department of Clinical Pathomorphology, Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, 85-067 Bydgoszcz, Poland; (D.G.); (Ł.S.)
- Department of Tumor Pathology and Pathomorphology, Oncology Centre-Prof. Franciszek Łukaszczyk Memorial Hospital, 85-796 Bydgoszcz, Poland;
| |
Collapse
|