TY - JOUR A1 - Halaburkova, Andrea A1 - Cahais, Vincent A1 - Novoloaca, Alexei A1 - Araujo, Mariana Gomes da Silva A1 - Khoueiry, Rita A1 - Ghantous, Akram A1 - Herceg, Zdenko T1 - Pan-cancer multi-omics analysis and orthogonal experimental assessment of epigenetic driver genes Y1 - 2020/10/01 JF - Genome Research JO - Genome Research SP - 1517 EP - 1532 DO - 10.1101/gr.268292.120 VL - 30 IS - 10 UR - http://genome.cshlp.org/content/30/10/1517.abstract N2 - The recent identification of recurrently mutated epigenetic regulator genes (ERGs) supports their critical role in tumorigenesis. We conducted a pan-cancer analysis integrating (epi)genome, transcriptome, and DNA methylome alterations in a curated list of 426 ERGs across 33 cancer types, comprising 10,845 tumor and 730 normal tissues. We found that, in addition to mutations, copy number alterations in ERGs were more frequent than previously anticipated and tightly linked to expression aberrations. Novel bioinformatics approaches, integrating the strengths of various driver prediction and multi-omics algorithms, and an orthogonal in vitro screen (CRISPR-Cas9) targeting all ERGs revealed genes with driver roles within and across malignancies and shared driver mechanisms operating across multiple cancer types and hallmarks. This is the largest and most comprehensive analysis thus far; it is also the first experimental effort to specifically identify ERG drivers (epidrivers) and characterize their deregulation and functional impact in oncogenic processes. ER -