Model based clustering approach for identifying structural variation using next generation sequencing data

Structural variation (SV) has been reported to be associated with numerous diseases such as cancer. With the advent of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, various types of SV can be potentially identified. We propose a model based clustering approach utilizing a set of features defined for each type of SV event. Our method, termed SVMiner, not only provides a probability score for each candidate, but also predicts the heterozygosity of genomic deletions. Experiments on genome-wide deep sequencing data have demonstrated that SVMiner is robust against the variability of a single cluster feature, and it performs well when classifying validated SV events with accentuated features.