Tumour mutations in long noncoding RNAs that enhance cell fitness

Tumour DNA contains thousands of single nucleotide variants (SNVs) in non-protein-coding regions, yet it remains unclear which are driver mutations that promote cell fitness. Amongst the most highly mutated non-coding elements are long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which can promote cancer and may be targeted therapeutically. We here searched for evidence that driver mutations may act through alteration of lncRNA function. Using an integrative driver discovery algorithm, we analysed single nucleotide variants (SNVs) from 2583 primary tumours and 3527 metastases to reveal 54 candidate driver lncRNAs (FDR