Novel somatic and germline mutations in intracranial germ cell tumours

Intracranial germ cell tumours (IGCTs) are a group of rare heterogeneous brain tumours that are clinically and histologically similar to the more common gonadal GCTs. IGCTs show great variation in their geographical and gender distribution, histological composition and treatment outcomes. The incidence of IGCTs is historically five- to eightfold greater in Japan and other East Asian countries than in Western countries, with peak incidence near the time of puberty. About half of the tumours are located in the pineal region. The male-to-female incidence ratio is approximately 3-4:1 overall, but is even higher for tumours located in the pineal region. Owing to the scarcity of tumour specimens available for research, little is currently known about this rare disease. Here we report the analysis of 62 cases by next-generation sequencing, single nucleotide polymorphism array and expression array. We find the KIT/RAS signalling pathway frequently mutated in more than 50% of IGCTs, including novel recurrent somatic mutations in KIT, its downstream mediators KRAS and NRAS, and its negative regulator CBL. Novel somatic alterations in the AKT/mTOR pathway included copy number gains of the AKT1 locus at 14q32.33 in 19% of patients, with corresponding upregulation of AKT1 expression. We identified loss-of-function mutations in BCORL1, a transcriptional co-repressor and tumour suppressor. We report significant enrichment of novel and rare germline variants in JMJD1C, which codes for a histone demethylase and is a coactivator of the androgen receptor, among Japanese IGCT patients. This study establishes a molecular foundation for understanding the biology of IGCTs and suggests potentially promising therapeutic strategies focusing on the inhibition of KIT/RAS activation and the AKT1/mTOR pathway.

Single-nucleotide polymorphisms in the public domain: how useful are they?

There is a concerted effort by a number of public and private groups to identify a large set of human single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). As of March 2001, 2.84 million SNPs have been deposited in the public database, dbSNP, at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/SNP/). The 2.84 million SNPs can be grouped into 1.65 million non-redundant SNPs. As part of the International SNP Map Working Group, we recently published a high-density SNP map of the human genome consisting of 1.42 million SNPs (ref. 3). In addition, numerous SNPs are maintained in proprietary databases. Our survey of more than 1,200 SNPs indicates that more than 80% of TSC and Washington University candidate SNPs are polymorphic and that approximately 50% of the candidate SNPs from these two sources are common SNPs (with minor allele frequency of > or =20%) in any given population.

A map of human genome sequence variation containing 1.42 million single nucleotide polymorphisms

We describe a map of 1.42 million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) distributed throughout the human genome, providing an average density on available sequence of one SNP every 1.9 kilobases. These SNPs were primarily discovered by two projects: The SNP Consortium and the analysis of clone overlaps by the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium. The map integrates all publicly available SNPs with described genes and other genomic features. We estimate that 60,000 SNPs fall within exon (coding and untranslated regions), and 85% of exons are within 5 kb of the nearest SNP. Nucleotide diversity varies greatly across the genome, in a manner broadly consistent with a standard population genetic model of human history. This high-density SNP map provides a public resource for defining haplotype variation across the genome, and should help to identify biomedically important genes for diagnosis and therapy.

Sequence assembly with CAFTOOLS

Large-scale genomic sequencing requires a software infrastructure to support and integrate applications that are not directly compatible. We describe a suite of software tools built around the Common Assembly Format (CAF), a comprehensive representation of a sequence assembly as a text file. These tools form the backbone of sequencing informatics at the Sanger Centre and the Genome Sequencing Center. The CAF format is intentionally flexible, and our Perl and C libraries, which parse and manipulate it, provide powerful tools for creating new applications as well as wrappers to incorporate other software. The tools are available free by anonymous FTP from ftp://ftp.sanger.ac.uk/pub/badger/.