{
  "abstract": "Somatic mutations accumulate independently in the two parental genome copies of our cells throughout life and shape cancer evolution. Although local mutation rates are influenced by allele-specific features such as DNA sequence, epigenetic marks, and chromatin structure, whether these translate into genome-wide differences in mutation accrual between the two parental copies is unknown. Cancer genomics analyses, including copy-number gain timing and molecular archaeology, assume that mutations accrue symmetrically on the two homologous parental genomes, yet this assumption has never been tested. Here we present PhaSoMix, a framework exploiting the genetic differentiation between parental haplotypes in admixed cancer patients to assign somatic mutations to their parent of origin without parent or parent-surrogate sequencing. Applying it with explicit modeling and propagation of phasing and ancestry-inference uncertainty across 21 tumor whole genomes from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes cohort, we find mutation burdens highly symmetric between maternal and paternal genomes, across cancer types, genomic annotations, clonal timing categories, and mutational processes including clock-like CpG sites, bounding any asymmetry to within 4-5%. Simulations show that violations would substantially bias gain-timing estimates in late evolutionary windows. This provides the first quantification of parental mutation-burden symmetry in vivo, validating a key assumption of cancer evolutionary analyses.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Universite Libre de Bruxelles"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "M. Lefebvre"
    },
    {
      "name": "A. Cleris"
    },
    {
      "name": "M. Parmentier"
    },
    {
      "name": "P. Van Loo"
    },
    {
      "name": "V. Detours"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "M. Tarabichi"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/96yy340abwhb5.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.09.02.748867",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.02.748867v1.full",
  "id": "96yy340abwhb5",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.02.748867v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "genomics"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1306|Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7211911773",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.02.748867v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-02",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/96yy340abwhb5.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:19:52Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.09.02.748867",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.02.748867v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:genomics",
      "subfield": "genetics-genomics"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Parent-of-origin phasing of somatic mutations shows equal mutation burden between parental genomes in human cancers",
  "title_text": "Parent-of-origin phasing of somatic mutations shows equal mutation burden between parental genomes in human cancers",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:19:52Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/96yy340abwhb5",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}