Abstract
AbstractTranscriptional dysregulation is a key feature of cancer. Transcription factors (TFs) are the main link between signalling pathways and the transcriptional regulatory machinery of the cell, positioning them as key oncogenic inductors and therefore potential targets of therapeutic intervention. We implemented a computational pipeline to infer TF regulatory activities from basal gene expression and applied it to publicly available and newly generated RNA-seq data from a collection of 1,010 cancer cell lines and 9,250 primary tumors. We show that the predicted TF activities recapitulate known mechanisms of transcriptional dysregulation in cancer and dissect mutant-specific effects in driver genes. Importantly, we show the potential for predicted TF activities to be used as markers of sensitivity to the inhibition of their upstream regulators. Furthermore, combining these inferred activities with existing pharmacogenomic markers significantly improves the stratification of sensitive and resistant cell lines for several compounds. Our approach provides a framework to link driver genomic alterations with transcriptional dysregulation that helps to predict drug sensitivity in cancer and to dissect its mechanistic determinants.

Abstract
AbstractUsing a dataset of somatic Structural Variants (SVs) in cancers from 2658 patients—1220 with corresponding gene expression data—we identified hundreds of genes for which the nearby presence (within 100kb) of an SV breakpoint was associated with altered expression. For the vast majority of these genes, expression was increased rather than decreased with corresponding SV event. Well-known up-regulated cancer-associated genes impacted by this phenomenon included TERT, MDM2, CDK4, ERBB2, CD274, PDCD1LG2, and IGF2. SVs upstream of TERT involved ~3% of cancer cases and were most frequent in liver-biliary, melanoma, sarcoma, stomach, and kidney cancers. SVs associated with up-regulation of PD1 and PDL1 genes involved ~1% of non-amplified cases. For many genes, SVs were significantly associated with either increased numbers or greater proximity of enhancer regulatory elements near the gene. DNA methylation near the gene promoter was often increased with nearby SV breakpoint, which may involve inactivation of repressor elements.AbbreviationsPCAWGthe Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes projectSVStructural Variant

Abstract
The Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) cohort provides a large, uniformly-analyzed, whole-genome dataset. The PCAWG Landing Page (http://docs.icgc.org/pcawg) focuses on four biologist-friendly, publicly-available web tools for exploring this data: The ICGC Data Portal, UCSC Xena, Expression Atlas, and PCAWG-Scout. They enable researchers to dynamically query the complex genomics data, explore tumors' molecular landscapes, and include external information to facilitate interpretation.

Abstract
Cancer is characterised by somatic genetic variation, but the effect of the majority of non-coding somatic variants and the interface with the germline genome are still unknown. We analysed the whole genome and RNA-seq data from 1,188 human cancer patients as provided by the Pan-cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) project to map cis expression quantitative trait loci of somatic and germline variation and to uncover the causes of allele-specific expression patterns in human cancers. The availability of the first large-scale dataset with both whole genome and gene expression data enabled us to uncover the effects of the non-coding variation on cancer. In addition to confirming known regulatory effects, we identified novel associations between somatic variation and expression dysregulation, in particular in distal regulatory elements. Finally, we uncovered links between somatic mutational signatures and gene expression changes, including TERT and LMO2, and we explained the inherited risk factors in APOBEC-related mutational processes. This work represents the first large-scale assessment of the effects of both germline and somatic genetic variation on gene expression in cancer and creates a valuable resource cataloguing these effects.

Abstract
Gene fusions are an important class of cancer-driving events with therapeutic and diagnostic values, yet their underlying genetic mechanisms have not been systematically characterized. Here by combining RNA and whole genome DNA sequencing data from 1188 donors across 27 cancer types we obtained a list of 3297 high-confidence tumour-specific gene fusions, 82% of which had structural variant (SV) support and 2372 of which were novel. Such a large collection of RNA and DNA alterations provides the first opportunity to systematically classify the gene fusions at a mechanistic level. While many could be explained by single SVs, numerous fusions involved series of structural rearrangements and thus are composite fusions. We discovered 75 fusions of a novel class of inter-chromosomal composite fusions, termed bridged fusions, in which a third genomic location bridged two different genes. In addition, we identified 522 fusions involving non-coding genes and 157 ORF-retaining fusions, in which the complete open reading frame of one gene was fused to the UTR region of another. Although only a small proportion (5%) of the discovered fusions were recurrent, we found a set of highly recurrent fusion partner genes, which exhibited strong 5' or 3' bias and were significantly enriched for cancer genes. Our findings broaden the view of the gene fusion landscape and reveal the general properties of genetic alterations underlying gene fusions for the first time.

Abstract
Introduction Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease known to carry a high risk of disabling and many times requiring surgical interventions. This article describes a decision-tree based approach that defines the CD patients' risk or undergoing disabling events, surgical interventions and reoperations, based on clinical and demographic variables. Materials and methods This multicentric study involved 1547 CD patients retrospectively enrolled and divided into two cohorts: a derivation one (80%) and a validation one (20%). Decision trees were built upon applying the CHAIRT algorithm for the selection of variables. Results Three-level decision trees were built for the risk of disabling and reoperation, whereas the risk of surgery was described in a two-level one. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed, and the area under the curves (AUC) Was higher than 70% for all outcomes. The defined risk cut-off values show usefulness for the assessed outcomes: risk levels above 75% for disabling had an odds test positivity of 4.06 [3.50-4.71], whereas risk levels below 34% and 19% excluded surgery and reoperation with an odds test negativity of 0.15 [0.09-0.25] and 0.50 [0.24-1.01], respectively. Overall, patients with B2 or B3 phenotype had a higher proportion of disabling disease and surgery, while patients with later introduction of pharmacological therapeutic (1 months after initial surgery) had a higher proportion of reoperation. Conclusions The decision-tree based approach used in this study, with demographic and clinical variables, has shown to be a valid and useful approach to depict such risks of disabling, surgery and reoperation.