Squamous cell lung cancer is a major histotype of non-small cell lung cancer 
(NSCLC) that is distinct from lung adenocarcinoma. We used whole-exome 
sequencing to identify novel non-synonymous somatic mutations in squamous cell 
lung cancer. We identified 101 single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) including 77 
non-synonymous SNVs (67 missense and 10 nonsense mutations) and 11 INDELs 
causing frameshifts. We also found four SNVs located within splicing sites. We 
verified 62 of the SNVs (51 missense, 10 nonsense and 1 splicing-site mutation) 
and 10 of the INDELs as somatic mutations in lung cancer tissue. Sixteen of the 
mutated genes were also mutated in at least one patient with a different type of 
lung cancer in the Catalogue of Somatic Mutation in Cancer (COSMIC) database. 
Four genes (LPHN2, TP53, MYH2 and TGM2) were mutated in approximately 10% of the 
samples in the COSMIC database. We identified two missense mutations in 
C10orf137 and MS4A3 that also occurred in other solid-tumor tissues in the 
COSMIC database. We found another somatic mutation in EP300 that was mutated in 
4.2% of the 2,020 solid-tumor samples in the COSMIC database. Taken together, 
our results implicate TP53, EP300, LPHN2, C10orf137, MYH2, TGM2 and MS4A3 as 
potential driver genes of squamous cell lung cancer.