A treasure trove of clues about the causes of cancer has been uncovered by analysis of thousands of tumours.
For the first time, researchers are able to detect patterns in the genes of cancer.
These give clues about whether a patient has been exposed to environmental causes of cancer, such as smoking or UV light.
Doctors can look at each patient's tumours and match it to specific treatments and medications with the help of these signatures.
The only way to detect these patterns is through the analysis of the vast amounts of data unearthed by whole genome sequencing.
The principal author of the study is a professor at the University of Cambridge.
She said that it was like looking at a very busy beach with thousands of footprints in the sand. The footprints look random and meaningless to the untrained eye.
If you can study them closely, you can learn a lot about what has been going on.
It's the same thing with the signatures that have changed.
The use of whole genome sequencing can reveal what happened during the development of the cancer.
The complete genetic makeup of more than 12,000 cancer patients was analysed by researchers.
There are additional causes of cancer that are not yet fully understood, and they were able to spot 58 new signatures.
The reason it is important to identify the signatures is because they are like fingerprints at a crime scene.
Some signatures can highlight abnormality that may be targeted with specific drugs or may indicate a potential for cancer.
The University of Cambridge's first author said that whole genome sequencing gives a complete picture of all the genes that contribute to cancer.
With thousands of genes per cancer, we have unprecedented power to look for similarities and differences among patients, and in doing so we uncovered 58 new signatures.
The findings are being incorporated into the health service as researchers and clinicians now have the use of a digital tool called FitMS that will help them identify the mutational signature and potentially inform cancer management more effectively.
The research was supported by Cancer Research UK.
The 100,000 Genomes Project is an England-wide clinical research programme to sequence 100,000 whole genomes from about 85,000 patients affected by rare disease or cancer.
The study shows how powerful whole genome sequencing tests can be in giving clues into how the cancer may have developed, how it will behave and what treatment options would work best.
Prof Matthew Brown said that Mutant signatures are an example of using the full potential of WGS.
We hope to use the clues seen in the study to improve the diagnosis and management of cancer patients.
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