Fig 1. Identification of mutually exclusive alterations associated with a target profile.

Alterations in the green set have high mutual exclusivity but no association with the target profile (e.g., a molecular mechanism commonly altered in cancer). Alterations in the orange set have lower mutual exclusivity but strong association with the target profile (e.g., genes in the same pathway of the drug target). Methods that find mutually exclusive sets of alterations without considering the target profile will identify the green set as the most important gene set.