Hi, currently I am interested in 42 cell lines with each cell line harbouring several hundred or over one thousand mutations, all of them located in coding region and germline mutations were filtered. I understand that most germline mutations are not driver mutations, but all those mutations in my list I am wondering how to decide if they are driver or not.
I am new to this area so please point out if I am wrong. My understand is that a gene harboring driver mutations is a driver gene, but a driver gene can also harbor passenger mutations. Also a mutation being "driver" in one cell doesn't mean it is also driver in other cell. When you say "how frequently the gene is mutated", do you mean "how many cancer patients carrying the mutation"? So technically if a mutation is carried only by all the cancer patients but not by the individuals from healthy cohort, then we can call this mutation a driver?