FAQ

Who should I contact if I encounter a problem?

If you believe your problem may be encountered by other users, please post the question on biostars. Check to make sure your question has not been already answered by looking at posts with the tag 2020+. Otherwise, create a new post with the 2020+ tag. We will be checking biostars for questions. You may also contact me directly at ctokhei1 AT alumni dot jh dot edu.

Can I use my own custom list of oncogenes/tumor suppressor genes for training?

Yes, you can change which genes are used for the training list of well-supported oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. All you need is to change the gene names found in data/gene_lists/oncogenes.txt and data/gene_lists/tsgs.txt. This should only be done for advanced users as the training list of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes were established from cancer experts.

How can I speed up the run time of 20/20+?

You can substantially speed up run time by reducing the number of simulations. This can be done by reducing the NUMSIMULATIONS variable (e.g. from 100000 to 10000) in the config.yaml file or specification in the command line of snakemake via –config NUMSIMULATIONS=10000. This might result in a slight decrease in prediction performance but may be waranted for large data.

What happens if silent mutations were not recorded in my data set?

Ocassionally, in the literature, studies may only report non-silent mutations from a sequencing study. If not accounted for, this may bias estimates of statistical significance. To make an adjustment for this problem, provide the drop_silent option via the command line: –config drop_silent=”yes”.