MEXCOwalk: mutual exclusion and coverage based random walk to identify cancer modules

Rafsan Ahmed, Ilyes Baali, Cesim Erten, Evis Hoxha, Hilal Kazan

Abstract: Genomic analyses from large cancer cohorts have revealed the mutational heterogeneity problem which hinders the identification of driver genes based only on mutation profiles. One way to tackle this problem is to incorporate the fact that genes act together in functional modules. The connectivity knowledge present in existing protein–protein interaction (PPI) networks together with mutation frequencies of genes and the mutual exclusivity of cancer mutations can be utilized to increase the accuracy of identifying cancer driver modules.