What's cosmic VCF? The popular MuTect variant tool: > < has the following VCF option: > \--cosmic < comic.vcf > **Q:** What is this cosmic VCF file? What's the purpose of the file?

**VCF** is an abbreviation for Variant Call Format. It is a file format for SNPs.

**COSMIC** stands for Catalogue Of Somatic Mutations In Cancer. It is a database.

Have a look at the links for more information.

A COSMIC VCF is likely just a file in VCF format file containing data coming from the COSMIC data base.