Abstract 1200: A novel algorithm for deconvolving cancer allele-specific clone copy number and copy number evolution
Authors: Pawlik Piotr , Grigoriadis Kristiana K. , Bunkum Abigail , Zaccaria Simone , McGranahan Nicholas , Swanton Charles 
Published: March 2024

Both single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and somatic copy number alterations (SCNAs) accumulate in cancer cells during tumor development, fuelling clonal evolution. However, accurate inference of their coevolution from bulk DNA sequencing is challenging. We present ALPACA (ALlele-specific Phylogenetic Analysis of clone Copy number Alterations), a novel algorithm to allow the practical inference of SNV and SCNA coevolution. ALPACA is framed as an optimisation problem, that takes as input bulk tumor sample copy number mixtures and the tumor phylogenetic tree constructed from SNVs, and deconvolves the optimal, allele-specific integer copy number profiles for every distinct clone present in the tumor. To circumvent the challenge of joint SNV/SCNA inference, we postulate that in high mutation burden tumors all relevant SCNA clones are identifiable by their unique SNVs, hence ALPACA leverages phylogenetic trees constructed from bulk tumor sequencing data using SNVs. Secondly, to restrict the clone-specific copy number search space, ALPACA leverages constraints imposed by multisample sequencing, specifically in cases where clones are present across multiple samples or clones from different samples are phylogenetically related. Finally, ALPACA relies on parsimony and biologically informed constraints to further guide the deconvolution process.

We demonstrate that ALPACA infers the copy number evolution of complex simulated tumors with higher accuracy than current state-of-the-art methods. We apply ALPACA to the large, multisample non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cohort from the recent longitudinal, prospective TRACERx421 study, and show that ALPACA uncovers loss of heterozygosity and amplification events in minor subclones that were previously missed using standard approaches. ALPACA's assignment of SCNA driver events to branches of the phylogenetic tree reveals the evolutionary ordering of SNVs and SCNAs during NSCLC tumor evolution, such as late focal amplifications affecting the TERT gene locus occurring in subclones which expand and dominate a tumor sample. ALPACA enables an in-depth analysis of the coevolution of mutations and SCNAs in the tumor’s evolutionary history, revealing distinct patterns of copy number evolution. Notably, ALPACA identifies common patterns of copy number changes across the genome characterizing metastatic seeding clones, revealing that they harbor an increased number of SCNAs compared to clones that do not metastasize. Additionally, ALPACA uncovers subclonal enrichment for CCND1 amplification in primary tumor subclones that seed metastasis, and an overall increase of SCNA events occurring in both tumors with polyclonal seeding and extrathoracic metastases.

Clone-level results obtained with ALPACA can offer new clinical insights and enable new types of analysis, e.g. copy number signature analysis including temporal order of SCNA acquisition.

Citation Format: Piotr Pawlik, Kristiana K. Grigoriadis, Abigail Bunkum, Simone Zaccaria, Nicholas McGranahan, Charles Swanton. A novel algorithm for deconvolving cancer allele-specific clone copy number and copy number evolution [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2024; Part 1 (Regular Abstracts); 2024 Apr 5-10; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2024;84(6_Suppl):Abstract nr 1200.