Somatic Copy Number Alterations in Human Cancers: An Analysis of Publicly Available Data From The Cancer Genome Atlas

Somatic copy number alterations (SCNAs) are a pervasive trait of human cancers that contributes to tumorigenesis by affecting the dosage of multiple genes at the same time. In the past decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) initiatives have generated and made publicly available SCNA genomic profiles from thousands of tumor samples across multiple cancer types. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of 853,218 SCNAs across 10,729 tumor samples belonging to 32 cancer types using TCGA data. We then discuss current models for how SCNAs likely arise during carcinogenesis and how genomic SCNA profiles can inform clinical practice. Lastly, we highlight open questions in the field of cancer-associated SCNAs.