Syntaxin 17, an ancient SNARE paralog, plays different and conserved roles in different organisms.

Mammalian syntaxin 17 (Stx17) has several roles in processes other than membrane fusion, including in mitochondrial division, autophagosome formation and lipid droplet expansion. In contrast to conventional syntaxins, Stx17 has a long C-terminal hydrophobic region with a hairpin-like structure flanked by a basic amino acid-enriched C-terminal tail. Although Stx17 is one of the six ancient SNAREs and is present in diverse eukaryotic organisms, it has been lost in multiple lineages during evolution.

Extreme value theory as a framework for understanding mutation frequency distribution in cancer genomes.

Currently, the population dynamics of preclonal cancer cells before clonal expansion of tumors has not been sufficiently addressed thus far. By focusing on preclonal cancer cell population as a Darwinian evolutionary system, we formulated and analyzed the observed mutation frequency among tumors (MFaT) as a proxy for the hypothesized sequence read frequency and beneficial fitness effect of a cancer driver mutation. Analogous to intestinal crypts, we assumed that sample donor patients are separate culture tanks where proliferating cells follow certain population dynamics described by extreme value theory (EVT).

Quantifying local malignant adaptation in tissue-specific evolutionary trajectories by harnessing cancer's repeatability at the genetic level.

Cancer is a potentially lethal disease, in which patients with nearly identical genetic backgrounds can develop a similar pathology through distinct combinations of genetic alterations. We aimed to reconstruct the evolutionary process underlying tumour initiation, using the combination of convergence and discrepancies observed across 2,742 cancer genomes from nine tumour types. We developed a framework using the repeatability of cancer development to score the local malignant adaptation (LMA) of genetic clones, as their potential to malignantly progress and invade their environment of origin.