The pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes The expansion of whole-genome sequencing studies from individual ICGC and TCGA working groups presented the opportunity to undertake a meta-analysis of genomic features across tumour types. To achieve this, the PCAWG Consortium was established. A Technical Working Group implemented the informatics analyses by aggregating the raw sequencing data from different working groups that studied individual tumour types, aligning the sequences to the human genome and delivering a set of high-quality somatic mutation calls for downstream analysis (Extended Data Fig. 1). Given the recent meta-analysis

Variation in vectorial capacity for human malaria among Anopheles mosquito species is determined by many factors, including behavior, immunity, and life history. To investigate the genomic basis of vectorial capacity and explore new avenues for vector control, we sequenced the genomes of 16 anopheline mosquito species from diverse locations spanning ~100 million years of evolution. Comparative analyses show faster rates of gene gain and loss, elevated gene shuffling on the X chromosome, and more intron losses, relative to Drosophila. Some determinants of vectorial capacity, such as chemosensory genes, do not show elevated turnover, but instead diversify through protein-sequence changes. This dynamism of anopheline genes and genomes may contribute to their flexible capacity to take advantage of new ecological niches, including adapting to humans as primary hosts.

Long interspersed nuclear element–1 (L1) retrotransposons are mobile repetitive elements that are abundant in the human genome. L1 elements propagate through RNA intermediates. In the germ line, neighboring, nonrepetitive sequences are occasionally mobilized by the L1 machinery, a process called 3′ transduction. Because 3′ transductions are potentially mutagenic, we explored the extent to which they occur somatically during tumorigenesis. Studying cancer genomes from 244 patients, we found that tumors from 53% of the patients had somatic retrotranspositions, of which 24% were 3′ transductions. Fingerprinting of donor L1s revealed that a handful of source L1 elements in a tumor can spawn from tens to hundreds of 3′ transductions, which can themselves seed further retrotranspositions. The activity of individual L1 elements fluctuated during tumor evolution and correlated with L1 promoter hypomethylation. The 3′ transductions disseminated genes, exons, and regulatory elements to new locations, most often to heterochromatic regions of the genome.

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