SVelfie: A method for discovering cancer drivers based on enrichment of likely functional structural variants

Structural variants (SVs) can drive tumorigenesis, yet discovering SV cancer drivers remains challenging¹. Here, we present SVelfie (<underline>S</underline>tructural<underline>V</underline>ariants<underline>e</underline>nriched withlikely<underline>f</underline>unctional/impactful<underline>e</underline>vents), a statistical method to infer driver genes from SVs detected across a cohort of cancer genomes, based on enrichment of likely functional events. When testing SVelfie on lymphoma samples from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG)², it corroborates known tumor suppressor genes and also yields novel driver candidates.