Colon and ovarian translocations

Two of the first types of cancer genomes analysed, ovarian and colorectal, show substantial differences in many key aspects (e.g. copy number profiles and number of point mutant driving lesions) but both now have evidence for structural variants that drive these tumours. About ten papers have published one or more recurrent drivers in these tumour types with a few important findings. First, there is a wide range in the number of structural rearrangements from just a few to hundreds per cancer genome. Second, most common rearrangements mirror the patterns seen in other tumour types where the exact gene pair is less important than the types of genes that are being rearranged. Finally, these tumour types emphasize the complexity of the problem from technical as well as epidemiological perspectives-the validation of rearrangements as being recurrent (and thus as likely drivers) remains a major challenge.